Scottish police in call to legalise all drugs

[klaatu]

From the Transform Drug Policy Foundation ( http://www.tdpf.org.uk/ )

Quoting from the Daily Mail Scotland front page exclusive:

SCOTTISH POLICE IN CALL TO LEGALISE ALL DRUGS

Thursday April 13 2006

POLICE officers are calling for all drugs to be legalised in Scotland . In a hugely controversial move, an influential group of frontline officers is demanding a radical change in the law. They say that even Class A drugs such as cocaine and heroin should no longer be illegal. The call comes from rank and file police in the country's biggest force who say radical measures are essential to tackle the spiralling drug problem.

Strathclyde Police Federation which represents nearly all 7,700 officers in the area, says all drugs should be licensed for use by addicts. The Association says millions of pounds are wasted on futile efforts to tackle the issue, with resources diverted from other police duties.

…

Inspector Jim Duffy, chairman of the federation, said the approach to drug abuse must be transformed in order to cut the death toll. He said: ”We should legalise all drugs currently covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act – everything from class A to C, including heroin, cocaine and speed.

“We are not winning the war against drugs and we need to think about different ways to tackle it. Tell me a village where they are drug-free?”

He added: “Despite the amount of resources and the fantastic work our girls and guys do, we are not making a difference. We don't have any control at the moment.

…

Strathclyde Police Federation plans to table a discussion motion at the body's forthcoming national conference to garner support from officers across Scotland.

---------------

Notes for Editors

Comment from Transform Director Danny Kushlick :

"For a policy that aims to eliminate drug supply and use, it has failed in spectacular style. Over the last 40 years illegal drug use has risen by at least 300%. Attempts to curtail drug supply have been equally ineffective, with drugs now cheaper and more available than ever before. Billions in taxpayer's money are being spent each year on a policy that is acheiving the exact opposite of its stated aim

"When high demand for drugs collides with laws that prohibit them, the result is a dramatic rise in drug prices, with low value commodities becoming, quite literally, worth more than their weight in gold. The hugely lucrative opportunities this creates attract the violent criminal entrepreneurs who now control the worlds largest criminal market, worth £300 billion a year.

"inflated drug prices mean that low income dependent drug users often resort to property crime or prostitution to support their habits. the Government estimates that this relatively small population of dependent heroin and cocaine users is now responsible for 54% of robberies, 70-80% of burglaries, 85% of shoplifting and 95% of street prostitution. in addition prohibition criminalises millions of (otherwise law abiding) drug using adults, making it unparalelled in its contribution to prison overcrowding and the wider crisis in the criminal justice system.

"This is not a debate that invites fence sitters and Strathclyde police federation has courageously climbed down.

------------------

Klaatu

Reputation Comments on this post:

[The Doors]

Interesting article, looks like at least some people are starting to "get it"

[Solidly-here]

A Blast from the Past.

Not too many years ago, ALL drugs were legal. Then Uncle Sam decided that there are Good drugs and Bad drugs.

Soon, the Titan of the Western world convinced other countries that there are Bad drugs. Laws popped up, to end the (now) illegal use of drugs. Well, this did NOT reduce drug use . . . it multiplied its use. It was a "good" idea, which turned bad (and very quickly too).

So, what's a country supposed to do, when their War on Drugs is lost EVERY, SINGLE day? Duh. Let's just drop all of those un-enforcable laws.

Scotland police have been demeaned enough. They want to stop arresting 1000s of people for a personal life-style issue (and return to the good-old days when robbers and murderers were their main targets to be nabbed). You're looking good, mates.

[Lunar Loops]

Yes, it is VERY heartening that there are some in positions of power who realise that the so called 'war on drugs' has failed spectacularly and will continue to do so, but unfortunately for us it is not a popular view point with the policy makers of this world.

Richard Brunstrom, the North Wales police chief made the very same call over a year ago, but it fell on unfertile ground. Unfortunately, the delight experienced by germination of sensible thought does not always translate into healthy growth of legislation. Governments only listen to police chiefs when it suits them and when it does not they simply ignore them or tell them how it is going to be. Mo Mowlem is sadly missed in this regard and as many of us know she was about to publish a book (which I believe her husband is going ahead with.....anyone have any news on this?) that was calling for the legalisation of all drugs. Unfortunately, most European governments are merely lap-dogs to the great BushMeister and they fear greatly upsetting their master. Their master is never going to change drugs policy whilst there's a hole in his arse.

Reputation Comments on this post:

well said...

[StigmataLectron]

Well, it's at least a good step in the right direction.

Of course, what'd be fantastic is if the police officers just refused to enforce the inane laws. The whole idea of prohibition kind of falls apart if there's nobody there to enforce it - just look at Canada.

[jardo]

Originally Posted by StigmataLectron

Well, it's at least a good step in the right direction.

Of course, what'd be fantastic is if the police officers just refused to enforce the inane laws. The whole idea of prohibition kind of falls apart if there's nobody there to enforce it - just look at Canada.

Just to clarify, do you mean Canadian law enforcement is lax, or do you mean Canadians just don't care about prohibition?

[StigmataLectron]

From what I've heard, Canadian police don't really see cannabis users as criminals and don't bother to arrest them. Take THAT, prohibition.

[Nagognog2]

But the War On Drugs does work! The largest growth industry in the United States is New Prisons! New Guards! New Courts! Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! ...try to tell a fascist politician to take Jobs! off his resume. Sure! And then stand up and admit the whole thing was a fucking bad joke in the first place. May it work in Scotland. But this will take a bit more of a kick in the pants here. Currently scaring the people with kids breaking into houses to grab your silverware and dropping dead from an overdose is all we are supposed to think and hear.

Don't quit trying - just get the record straight and get the truth out.

[klaatu]

Originally Posted by Nagognog2

But the War On Drugs does work! The largest growth industry in the United States is New Prisons! New Guards! New Courts! Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

Good point. And, of course, there are quite a few vacancies created when employed people are locked up for minor drug-possesion offences.

Originally Posted by Nagognog2

Don't quit trying - just get the record straight and get the truth out.

Can't argue with that....

Klaatu

[jardo]

Originally Posted by StigmataLectron

From what I've heard, Canadian police don't really see cannabis users as criminals and don't bother to arrest them. Take THAT, prohibition.

Gotcha. I can't speak for all of Canada.. but from my experience I'd say that's a safe statement. They aren't very aggressive when it comes to marijuana anymore, Nowadays they're preoccupied with meth. I geuss you gotta keep the Narcotics Division busy with something.

[Woodman]

---"Strathclyde Police Federation which represents nearly all 7,700 officers in the area, says all drugs should be licensed for use by addicts. The Association says millions of pounds are wasted on futile efforts to tackle the issue, with resources diverted from other police duties."---

Shit! I've been saying THAT for YEARS.

...and these people are only figuring it out, NOW?

WHAT THE FUCK!

[klaatu]

Update -

The Sunday Times - Scotland

April 30, 2006

Is legalising drugs the only answer?

Some top police officers are now backing the idea that hard drugs should be decriminalised. Is this a brave but foolhardy idea, asks Tim Luckhurst

When the Ayrshire drugs baron John Gorman was jailed for 12 years last week and nine of his associates received prison sentences totalling 41 years, staff at the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA) were jubilant. Since large-scale heroin trafficking began in the late 1980s, the impact has been devastating. One study puts the costs of drug addiction at more than £2 billion per year. The toll in human misery includes countless acts of street prostitution and children who witness food money injected into mummy’s veins. For the law-abiding, addiction manifests itself as mugging, house-breaking and car crime.

Graeme Pearson of the SDEA may have been guilty of hyperbole when he said, “There isn’t an Ayrshire town or village that escaped the suffering, misery and tragedy inflicted as a result of activities of this group,” but if so it was understandable.

Drug enforcement rarely catches the men police call “Mr Big.” Jails contain hundreds of distraught African “mules”, whose offence was to imagine they might escape grinding poverty by walking through Heathrow airport with drugs in their stomach. The criminal bosses who bully them are rarely caught.

A senior member of a Scottish police drug squad once described to me “our typical Big Man”. He lives in an expensive home in one of the affluent suburbs of a Scottish city. There are matching “his and hers” Mercedes cars on the drive. His children attend private schools and shop in designer stores where they pay in cash.

The drug baron’s affluence is attributed to front companies involved in multiple cash transactions — hire-cars are common. His narcotics are never stored at home. They might be locked in the boot of an apparently abandoned car. Ideally the drugs are on the streets, being peddled to the desperate by addicts who get their own hits by generating profits for the boss.

Street dealers get caught. But they say little about their source of supply. Mr Big has friends on both sides of the prison wall. He can afford to regard his couriers and dealers as dispensable assets. There are thousands more begging to be recruited. This, and the copious supplies of heroin now flowing from Afghanistan’s post-Taliban explosion in opium-growing, makes the imprisonment of Gorman and his cronies a temporary victory.

Faced with this knowledge, some frontline officers attending last week’s national conference of the Scottish Police Federation demanded the legalisation of hard drugs. They proposed a licensing scheme that would make drugs available to addicts under controlled circumstances. Inspector Jim Duffy of Strathclyde Police said: “We are not winning this war or anywhere close to it. The status quo is not an option. If the current rules of engagement do not change we are destined to continue to fail.”

Until recently the legalisation of hard drugs was associated almost exclusively with radical libertarianism. It is a measure of just how deep-seated Scotland’s drug problem has become that it is now being heard from police officers.

The logic is superficially compelling. Supporters argue that criminalising addictive substances has had the same effect as America’s experiment with prohibition of alcohol. Instead of limiting consumption it has delivered the trade into the hands of criminals. They become rich by meeting a demand that can never be entirely eradicated and which is in their interests to expand. Legalisation, say supporters, would get rid of the gangs and ensure the purity of drugs.

Converts to the cause tend to become evangelical, often moving on to assert that it would eradicate criminality all the way back to the opium fields and coca plantations.

The first minister does not agree. “I think it would be a disaster,” said McConnell. “I’m totally against it and I’m shocked that the Police Federation or any members of it would want to support this. I think the worst possible signal we could give to families across Scotland, to addicts in Scotland and to dealers beyond Scotland is that we are prepared to encourage more sales of drugs by legalising them.”

That was a knee-jerk reaction. But McConnell is right that they can usually rely on support from the relatives of addicts. Families struggling to save children from addiction often dismiss legalisation as a middle-class whim.

One Glasgow mother whose son served a sentence for drug-related crimes told me: “I was glad to see him in jail. It was harder for him to get drugs. But as soon as he came out we had a battle to stop him going straight back to them.” She described legalisation as “an excuse to waste the rest of his life.”

It is perhaps wishful thinking to assume gang members who make fortunes supplying drugs would be destroyed by legalisation. Certainly, the Scottish police are not speaking with one voice on the issue. Detective Sergeant Kenny Simpson, of Strathclyde force, says: “The public will look at this and ask themselves if the police have lost the plot altogether. If it’s any reassurance, my message to the public is no, we haven’t lost the plot — at least most of us haven’t”.

It seems unlikely that ruthless killers who exploit the production end of the supply chain will not be deterred by changes to local laws. Their capacity to disrupt legalisation cannot be lightly dismissed. It becomes hard to envisage how the state could secure supplies of drugs to state-registered outlets without paying terrorists to deliver them.

The criminal gangs could choose to undercut the state price. Or they could respond by selling more potent versions of the drugs addicts crave. History suggests gangs tend to diversify. People-smuggling is already taking a grim toll among young women from eastern Europe. Legalising drugs would put rocket boosters under that repulsive trade in slave prostitutes.

Legalisation is not the catch-all solution proponents imagine, but there remains a possibility that it might dent the drugs trade more than endless efforts to catch other Mr Bigs who run operations more sophisticated than Gorman’s. It is a debate worth having, although proponents of legalisation might perhaps care to note that Dutch politicians who pioneered some of the most liberal drugs laws in Europe are now seeking to tighten them after discovering that liberalisation was leading to increased drug usage.

Reputation Comments on this post:

You've been posting some great news stories: Keep it up!

[Alfa]

Originally Posted by klaatu

although proponents of legalisation might perhaps care to note that Dutch politicians who pioneered some of the most liberal drugs laws in Europe are now seeking to tighten them after discovering that liberalisation was leading to increased drug usage.

Where the fuck did they get that bullshit from? Liberalisation has certainly not increased drug use in The Netherlands.

[Lunar Loops]

This article apeared in yesterday's Evening Telegraph:


Legalising drugs: Vine’s commitmentTayside Police Chief Constable John Vine today said he would welcome open debate on the controversial issue of legalising drugs such as heroin, writes Gary Cooper.He made his commitment at a meeting in Forfar of the area’s joint police board after Councillor Neil Powrie expressed a fear seizures of illicit substances were just the tip of the iceberg.
Mr Powrie hit out at First Minister Jack McConnell, who last month branded Scottish police officers “irresponsible” after they called for hard drugs to be legalised. He said if that attitude continued and the views of officers were dismissed “we will never be able to have rational, open debate”.
Mr Powrie described drugs barons as odious and continued, “Fighting drugs trafficking and its abuse is a ceaseless battle we will never win.
“We are touching only the tip of the iceberg. We always have done and always will do, until we have an examination of the alternatives.”
The debate was opened by Councillor David Scott, who highlighted officers’ opinions at the Scottish Police Federation conference last month that drug crime would be cut by regulating drugs use.
He said the wider community was affected by drug abusers who commit crimes such as housebreaking and robbery to fund their habits.
On declassifying drugs, he asked, “I want to know if it’s something that should be examined.”
The chief constable responded, “I don’t agree that drugs should be legalised.”
He admitted people were shocked by the stance taken at the police conference, but said, “I have to say I would support an open and intelligent debate on this issue.
“It is not a Tayside issue, it is a national one. I am under no illusions this is a major problem for society.
“But I think it has to be led at national level, by politicians at national level. We, at police level, are part of that debate.”
The spotlight on the issue came after Mr Vine gave councillors an update on police anti-narcotics activity. He said the force had completed a year-long operation which had resulted in 20 people involved in major drug trafficking going before the courts. Mr Vine added prison sentences totalling 84 years had been handed out, with another trial still to take place.