A leading health adviser has urged NHS Highland to consider calling for the banning children from the streets after 8pm.
The curfew suggested would be 8pm for those under 12 and the slightly later time of 10pm for those aged between 13 and 16.
Teenage drug and alcohol use in Iceland dropped significantly after it introduced the approach.
Now UHI’s Professor Hugo van Woerden has recommended the approach to the health board in his annual report.
An article in the Mail on Sunday said parents would have to be drafted-in to enforce the curfew.
In his report, Professor van Woerden wrote: “To prevent the unrelenting rise in drug-related deaths and other associated harms, it is clear current policies need to be reviewed.
“In NHS Highland we are exploring the guiding principles of the Youth in Iceland Model, such as enhancing the social environment, community schools as the natural hub for learning and the importance of data driving decisions.
“The model identifies risk and protective factors and in Iceland this has translated into working with communities to enforce night time curfews (ages 13 to 16 years) and to prove all young people with free leisure cards.
The model has contributed towards successful reductions in drinking, smoking and cannabis use among Icelandic adolescents over the last 20 years.”
Scotland has the most drug-related deaths of any European nation. In the Highlands last year, 45% of deaths were drug-related.
A legal curfew in Scotland would need Government backing. In Iceland it is upheld by persuasion rather than penalties.
