Scottish Government drugs campaign in doubt following Scheme star newspaper revelations
An anti drug use poster campaign from the Scottish Government featuring Marvin Baird, one of the stars of BBC Scotland’s The Scheme documentary, has been placed in doubt with Baird making the front page of The Scottish Sun this morning, having been filmed taking heroin.
The article includes pictures of Baird, taken from a secretly filmed video of him taking heroin, despite claims that he had beaten his addiction.
Ahead of the article running, Baird claimed that he has ‘a job to start’ with the Scottish Government, and that he and health secretary Nicola Sturgeon were to speak to secondary school children about drug taking.
The paper added that the Scottish Government has denied this claim, and has quoted an insider who claimed that it will ‘re-assess the position of the poster campaign’ in light of the story.
Baird became well known to TV audiences last year as one of the subjects of The Scheme, when at the time he was a drug addict who had been jailed 17 times.
Following the show, he became a minor celebrity, which even led to him landing a role in a pantomime.
Four episodes of The Scheme were filmed, although only two have ever been broadcast due to another subject of the programme facing legal charges.