Interesting as usual Dom and explains part of the reason why I don't plan visiting the US in the foreseeable future (Canada is much nicer).
When I worked at Paddington we had a tom that regularly came in to custody for soliciting - let's call her Grace - quite a nice girl comparatively, relatively clean, health and polite but a regular visitor THEN she got £5K from crime stoppers for informing on someone. Within weeks she was a shadow of her former self, looked like a huge head on a skeleton and desperate for her next fix. Not sure how long she survived after that but I believe it was not long.
Secondly, the impact of cannabis use on mental health and the link with psychosis etc. is never mentioned in discussions on legalising it. I had a conversation with a mental health nurse donkeys years ago when the link had been mentioned in my hearing and they confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that cannabis use caused the majority of mental illness diagnoses. It is not necessarily inevitable but with a substantial proportion of users so now we have a whole generation of young people (and not so young) who are unable to look after themselves and will never be anything but mentally ill individuals.
My sister has a friend who was a frequent user of some sort of class A - no idea what - and my sister was keen for us all to have a get-together for some reason but was surprised when I declined. I had to explain that this friend obviously had a drug dealer that she got her drugs from therefore she had criminal associates and I didn't want to go anywhere near her. Where would a well educated office worker find a drug dealer?
Well written again Dom, I see things much the same as you. From personal experience on the ground back in the day at Stoke Newington where drugs will arrive and crime was high to visiting areas in the United States, especially the north West Coast where drugs are legalised and everything has changed
Our last experience in Portland was enough to make us vow never to return. We’ve loved this city for many years and were sad to see the strain and toll of crime that has taken place since legalisation. Smoke shops, should be well managed and regulated but as you say the people who have made a good living from illegal drugs aren’t just going to go legal. They now challenge the regulated smoke shops with cheaper stronger and unchecked and tested drugs. Everywhere we went that had a smoke shop had a criminal element surrounding it and an area of menace that came with the criminality. Even downtown in central Portland you could see the effect of low-level street crime everywhere, shops had their doors locked and you had to knock to enter and then were locked in so it’s not going to be rushed and looted, quite a change from our last visit pre-legalisation the same in Seattle and San Francisco with it huge homeless and drug problems.
Even Vancouver had issues on our last trip with the legalised smoke shops having the same issues surrounding them. This was where we noticed the hot spot phenomenon of the legal smoke shops. Coupled with the defund police culture prevalent in the cities you knew there would be no one to help if things got rough there would be no police back up. In Portland at one point I refused to stop and go into some stores because the whole place was surrounded by groups of drug addled folk lying around waiting to pounce. I insisted on driving back to our “Oasis” of a Hotel the only place I felt safe in the area. Usually my Police skills and general common sense keep me safe but all my Spidey senses were at 100% to get out of there.
I was also involved in some projects whilst on diplomatic protection and had contact with the Dutch police from Amsterdam who were experiencing gang and turf war in the centre of Amsterdam over drugs, all legalised. We had been involved in a project with scanners for metal objects and weapons and they were interested in the technology as they didn’t want to have the normal metal detector arches as a feature of street furniture. They wanted to target various gangs and territories to see who was carrying to be able to intercept them carefully. I asked the question whether legalising all drugs was a good idea and he said Pandora’s box had been opened and getting the genie back in the bottle was impossible.
We must look at society and see that there is a supply and demand economy with drugs and someone will fill the void at a cost to society. Whilst people who take drugs on a social and low level basis, don’t see a problem as they can usually manage their habit. It’s the people who can’t manage their habit that cause mayhem and lead to high levels of crime. Drugs seem to have been accepted by the younger generations as part of their life and don’t want to give it up so I can’t see us winning any battle battles on those grounds.
Legalisation? A great idea, until you look at tobacco and alcohol, both legally controlled, freely - well more or less in the case of tobacco - available to all through your local super or mini market. Both bring in revenue, tobacco at rates of up to 94% of the retail price, supporting the state, as government controlled operations. The campaign to ban smoking was led by the NHS in order to reduce the incidence of smoking related diseases (not a bad thing), and one with which I agree. The resulting loss of revenue seriously impacted government income, from which funding for the NHS is derived. Similarly alcohol, which, along with tobacco, is bootlegged into the UK in large quantities with enormous profit margins for the 'importers'.
Bootleggers, along with those involved in the drugs trade are criminals, serious criminals, who do not give a s**t for the impact on society, concerned only with the profitability of the business - which is what the drug trade is, although it gives the actors the opportunity to indulge their sociopathic tendencies at the same time. It is not all about the money, just mostly.
The argument 'drugs are not inherently harmful' is wholly fallacious and there is an enormous quantity of research to indicate the contrary. The fact that some people can, apparently, function normally whilst having a dependence on drugs does not in my view support a case for legalisation.
The idea that any government, apart from possibly North Korea, could entertain the idea that they should contribute to converting the populace to exist in a permanent semi-catatonic or hyperactive state in order to generate income is ridiculous.
I like (irony, by the way) the line 'there will be casualties ... but less than there will be ...' The same argument exists in smoking: smokers will get pulmonary, skin and other diseases, and will die. Ban smoking, ban alcohol, and we will save lives. Really? People will live longer, and may succumb to Alzheimer's or other age related diseases and exist for years in what amounts to a twilight world. Is there anyone who might posit they are 'casualties' of the smoking ban?
As usual, no-one takes any account of the most dangerous law ever; The Law of Unintended Consequences. Ignore it at your peril.
It is true that every drug has the potential to be harmful, but they aren’t all the same. Some are more addictive than others, some are more likely to kill you than others. Many drugs, like opioids, amphetamines and barbiturates, are widely prescribed by doctors. It’s just silly to lump them all in together; the availability and illegality of every drug should be reviewed frequently based on the evidence of harm caused by its abuse.
Along the way I've had a few conversations on the issues you raise. A medic who argued strongly that the use of needles was such a public health hazard all drugs should be legalised (this was around the time AIDS became an issue here). Then an academic who wrote a report, possibly for the Police Foundation, who I made contact with. He laughed at the idea the police understood how a market worked. On a visit to Pakistan, long before 9/11 (2001), I had dinner with a UNODC staffer who worked on Afghan heroin production. This was just after "nicking" a suspected dealer with two uncut heroin ozs in his underwear and he got six or seven years jail. The staffer laughed that was "peanuts" and in Pakistan it was intercepts of 100 kilos that was the minimum, publicly acknowledged enforcement success.
The "market" viewpoint came to the fore after a "successful" UC and obs operation pre-2005, with multi-year jail sentences for those caught dealing. The very next day after crown court all the street dealers had been replaced and the "market" was open.
More recently a conversation about the mass use of cocaine in their "parish" and the absence of any enforcement. I seem to recall the use of cocaine was cited after a debacle on the terraces and outside Wembley Stadium - a football match - where the madness had consequences.
Has anyone ever publicly researched the bodily violence associated with the drugs supply? Murders are often "associated" with drugs - what is the reality? How many die? I see the NPCC have recently spoken about the links between DV, mental health and deaths.
Could we, the UK, legally decriminalise drugs? Once I heard there was all manner of international protocols and treaties which would stop that - such treaties all reflecting an American viewpoint.
Nicely written as usual Dom. I’m afraid I am pro-legalisation for a number of reasons.
The crime comes from turf wars, the money involved, and the need to pay your dealer. Extra harm comes from the lack of product quality control.
Drugs are not inherently harmful if the above factors are controlled like they are with alcohol. An efficient supply industry and enforcement effort ensures that the product, with limited exceptions, is safely produced, quality assured, taxed and at reasonable price.
People who want to consume too much alcohol have been part of society for thousands of years but no effort is made to ban it because of the freedom of choice argument and the tax it generates.
Controlled legalisation of some/all drugs would allow concentration of enforcement resources on the scallies and medical resources on the addicts. Heroin used to be legal until 1971 and there were many functioning addicts.
The war on drugs is lost, and it’s time the agencies like the DEA that consume ever increasing funds to little effect on the flow in the industry were curtailed or redirected.
There will be casualties but I would argue less than there will be if the current situation continues. My 5p’s worth, and several ex CCs and a drugs judge in California agree with me.
You don't have to be 'afraid', Ray, as I said I genuinely respect your position. I see the merits. What I *don't* see is a country prepared to effectively make the changes necessary. I see a country with a political class that couldn't organise a panic in a doomed submarine.
Interesting as usual Dom and explains part of the reason why I don't plan visiting the US in the foreseeable future (Canada is much nicer).
When I worked at Paddington we had a tom that regularly came in to custody for soliciting - let's call her Grace - quite a nice girl comparatively, relatively clean, health and polite but a regular visitor THEN she got £5K from crime stoppers for informing on someone. Within weeks she was a shadow of her former self, looked like a huge head on a skeleton and desperate for her next fix. Not sure how long she survived after that but I believe it was not long.
Secondly, the impact of cannabis use on mental health and the link with psychosis etc. is never mentioned in discussions on legalising it. I had a conversation with a mental health nurse donkeys years ago when the link had been mentioned in my hearing and they confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that cannabis use caused the majority of mental illness diagnoses. It is not necessarily inevitable but with a substantial proportion of users so now we have a whole generation of young people (and not so young) who are unable to look after themselves and will never be anything but mentally ill individuals.
My sister has a friend who was a frequent user of some sort of class A - no idea what - and my sister was keen for us all to have a get-together for some reason but was surprised when I declined. I had to explain that this friend obviously had a drug dealer that she got her drugs from therefore she had criminal associates and I didn't want to go anywhere near her. Where would a well educated office worker find a drug dealer?
Anyway - good job as usual.
Well written again Dom, I see things much the same as you. From personal experience on the ground back in the day at Stoke Newington where drugs will arrive and crime was high to visiting areas in the United States, especially the north West Coast where drugs are legalised and everything has changed
Our last experience in Portland was enough to make us vow never to return. We’ve loved this city for many years and were sad to see the strain and toll of crime that has taken place since legalisation. Smoke shops, should be well managed and regulated but as you say the people who have made a good living from illegal drugs aren’t just going to go legal. They now challenge the regulated smoke shops with cheaper stronger and unchecked and tested drugs. Everywhere we went that had a smoke shop had a criminal element surrounding it and an area of menace that came with the criminality. Even downtown in central Portland you could see the effect of low-level street crime everywhere, shops had their doors locked and you had to knock to enter and then were locked in so it’s not going to be rushed and looted, quite a change from our last visit pre-legalisation the same in Seattle and San Francisco with it huge homeless and drug problems.
Even Vancouver had issues on our last trip with the legalised smoke shops having the same issues surrounding them. This was where we noticed the hot spot phenomenon of the legal smoke shops. Coupled with the defund police culture prevalent in the cities you knew there would be no one to help if things got rough there would be no police back up. In Portland at one point I refused to stop and go into some stores because the whole place was surrounded by groups of drug addled folk lying around waiting to pounce. I insisted on driving back to our “Oasis” of a Hotel the only place I felt safe in the area. Usually my Police skills and general common sense keep me safe but all my Spidey senses were at 100% to get out of there.
I was also involved in some projects whilst on diplomatic protection and had contact with the Dutch police from Amsterdam who were experiencing gang and turf war in the centre of Amsterdam over drugs, all legalised. We had been involved in a project with scanners for metal objects and weapons and they were interested in the technology as they didn’t want to have the normal metal detector arches as a feature of street furniture. They wanted to target various gangs and territories to see who was carrying to be able to intercept them carefully. I asked the question whether legalising all drugs was a good idea and he said Pandora’s box had been opened and getting the genie back in the bottle was impossible.
We must look at society and see that there is a supply and demand economy with drugs and someone will fill the void at a cost to society. Whilst people who take drugs on a social and low level basis, don’t see a problem as they can usually manage their habit. It’s the people who can’t manage their habit that cause mayhem and lead to high levels of crime. Drugs seem to have been accepted by the younger generations as part of their life and don’t want to give it up so I can’t see us winning any battle battles on those grounds.
After a long weekend of late night blue light runs, mostly ending in drugs incidents, this spoke to my soul.
Legalisation? A great idea, until you look at tobacco and alcohol, both legally controlled, freely - well more or less in the case of tobacco - available to all through your local super or mini market. Both bring in revenue, tobacco at rates of up to 94% of the retail price, supporting the state, as government controlled operations. The campaign to ban smoking was led by the NHS in order to reduce the incidence of smoking related diseases (not a bad thing), and one with which I agree. The resulting loss of revenue seriously impacted government income, from which funding for the NHS is derived. Similarly alcohol, which, along with tobacco, is bootlegged into the UK in large quantities with enormous profit margins for the 'importers'.
Bootleggers, along with those involved in the drugs trade are criminals, serious criminals, who do not give a s**t for the impact on society, concerned only with the profitability of the business - which is what the drug trade is, although it gives the actors the opportunity to indulge their sociopathic tendencies at the same time. It is not all about the money, just mostly.
The argument 'drugs are not inherently harmful' is wholly fallacious and there is an enormous quantity of research to indicate the contrary. The fact that some people can, apparently, function normally whilst having a dependence on drugs does not in my view support a case for legalisation.
The idea that any government, apart from possibly North Korea, could entertain the idea that they should contribute to converting the populace to exist in a permanent semi-catatonic or hyperactive state in order to generate income is ridiculous.
I like (irony, by the way) the line 'there will be casualties ... but less than there will be ...' The same argument exists in smoking: smokers will get pulmonary, skin and other diseases, and will die. Ban smoking, ban alcohol, and we will save lives. Really? People will live longer, and may succumb to Alzheimer's or other age related diseases and exist for years in what amounts to a twilight world. Is there anyone who might posit they are 'casualties' of the smoking ban?
As usual, no-one takes any account of the most dangerous law ever; The Law of Unintended Consequences. Ignore it at your peril.
It is true that every drug has the potential to be harmful, but they aren’t all the same. Some are more addictive than others, some are more likely to kill you than others. Many drugs, like opioids, amphetamines and barbiturates, are widely prescribed by doctors. It’s just silly to lump them all in together; the availability and illegality of every drug should be reviewed frequently based on the evidence of harm caused by its abuse.
Along the way I've had a few conversations on the issues you raise. A medic who argued strongly that the use of needles was such a public health hazard all drugs should be legalised (this was around the time AIDS became an issue here). Then an academic who wrote a report, possibly for the Police Foundation, who I made contact with. He laughed at the idea the police understood how a market worked. On a visit to Pakistan, long before 9/11 (2001), I had dinner with a UNODC staffer who worked on Afghan heroin production. This was just after "nicking" a suspected dealer with two uncut heroin ozs in his underwear and he got six or seven years jail. The staffer laughed that was "peanuts" and in Pakistan it was intercepts of 100 kilos that was the minimum, publicly acknowledged enforcement success.
The "market" viewpoint came to the fore after a "successful" UC and obs operation pre-2005, with multi-year jail sentences for those caught dealing. The very next day after crown court all the street dealers had been replaced and the "market" was open.
More recently a conversation about the mass use of cocaine in their "parish" and the absence of any enforcement. I seem to recall the use of cocaine was cited after a debacle on the terraces and outside Wembley Stadium - a football match - where the madness had consequences.
Has anyone ever publicly researched the bodily violence associated with the drugs supply? Murders are often "associated" with drugs - what is the reality? How many die? I see the NPCC have recently spoken about the links between DV, mental health and deaths.
Could we, the UK, legally decriminalise drugs? Once I heard there was all manner of international protocols and treaties which would stop that - such treaties all reflecting an American viewpoint.
Nicely written as usual Dom. I’m afraid I am pro-legalisation for a number of reasons.
The crime comes from turf wars, the money involved, and the need to pay your dealer. Extra harm comes from the lack of product quality control.
Drugs are not inherently harmful if the above factors are controlled like they are with alcohol. An efficient supply industry and enforcement effort ensures that the product, with limited exceptions, is safely produced, quality assured, taxed and at reasonable price.
People who want to consume too much alcohol have been part of society for thousands of years but no effort is made to ban it because of the freedom of choice argument and the tax it generates.
Controlled legalisation of some/all drugs would allow concentration of enforcement resources on the scallies and medical resources on the addicts. Heroin used to be legal until 1971 and there were many functioning addicts.
The war on drugs is lost, and it’s time the agencies like the DEA that consume ever increasing funds to little effect on the flow in the industry were curtailed or redirected.
There will be casualties but I would argue less than there will be if the current situation continues. My 5p’s worth, and several ex CCs and a drugs judge in California agree with me.
You don't have to be 'afraid', Ray, as I said I genuinely respect your position. I see the merits. What I *don't* see is a country prepared to effectively make the changes necessary. I see a country with a political class that couldn't organise a panic in a doomed submarine.