UK - Police chiefs to debate drugs fight

[Lunar Loops]

Can't see anything positive coming out of this really. This from The Guardian (UK):

Police chiefs to debate drugs fight

Press Association
Tuesday November 21, 2006 4:18 AM
Britain's top police officers are beginning a two-day conference to discuss the battle against illegal drugs.
The Association of Chief Police Officers event will focus on future opportunities, challenges and threats facing law enforcement officers and communities.
And senior officers will also discuss the threat of the emergence in the UK of a new super-addictive drug, methylamphetamine - or crystal meth, which has devastated poor communities in the US.
Humberside Police Chief Constable Tim Hollis, recently appointed chairman of the Acpo drugs committee, will introduce the Manchester conference, and give information on current police drugs strategy.
Speakers include Andy Sellers, Deputy Director for London Enforcement for the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca), District Judge Justin Phillips from west London's dedicated Drugs Court and the Hon Judy Harris Kluger from the New York Court system.
There will also be a ministerial address by Vernon Coaker, Parliamentary under-secretary for policing, crime and community safety.

[grecian]

Something positive perhaps...

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/sho...245#post207245

It will be interesting to see how this conference progresses

[dirk]

here's my local chief of police -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4802830.stm

Brunstrom wants drug gangs action

Richard Brunstrom said drug users were being stigmatised
The chief constable of North Wales Police has said the UK's policy of criminalising drugs has "caused an explosion in organised crime".
Richard Brunstrom told BBC Wales' Week In Week Out that making certain drugs illegal has meant control and supply has been handed over to criminal gangs.

Mr Brunstrom called for a radical review of UK drug policy...

...."And I think (there is) an increasing recognition that we have been playing into the hands of the drugs cartels, we have been making their money for them - that we have been foolish to do so."

As an aside, the guy is an absolute hard liner when it comes to speeding (cars that is). You can't go far round here without one of his boys pointing a radar gun at you - which is only fair I suppose.

[Lunar Loops]

OK, so there are at least some sane thinking individuals at this conference. Whether or not anything will get changed is another matter. Is that light I can see?

This from The Guardian (UK) http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Stor...954749,00.html :
Give heroin to addicts, says police chief
·Prescribing drug on NHS 'would reduce crime'
· Trials underway at clinics in London and north-east
Duncan Campbell
Thursday November 23, 2006
The Guardian

A top police officer called yesterday for heroin to be prescribed to addicts to cut the link between drugs and crime. Howard Roberts, deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire police, said that making the class A drug available under supervision would save money in the long run.
He cited figures showing addicts each commit on average 432 offences a year, "from burglary to robbery, to sometimes murder, to get the money to buy drugs". On average, each addict steals at least £45,000 worth of property a year.
Prescribing heroin by contrast would cost £12,000 a year per person.
"Therefore the logic is clear, I suggest, that we take highly addicted offenders out of committing crime to feed their addiction, into closely supervised treatment programmes that, as part of the programme, can prescribe diamorphine."
It emerged last night that the NHS is conducting trials backed by the Home Office in giving addicts heroin to deter them from stealing to feed a habit. A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed that doctors at two clinics - one in London, one in the north-east - prescribe heroin for "clinical need"; a third was being considered, but the trials were "at a very early stage". Results would be "closely assessed" by the relevant authorities, she added.
Mr Roberts' intervention came ahead of the arrival in Britain this weekend of a US former undercover detective who is spearheading a movement to end drug prohibition. More than 60 British officers, including two former chief constables, have joined Jack Cole's Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (Leap). He spent 26 years with the police in New Jersey. "Prohibition doesn't work, it's never worked," said Mr Cole, who will be addressing meetings of police officers and MPs during his visit. "Leap wants to end drug prohibition just as we ended alcohol prohibition in 1933. When we ended that nasty law, we put Al Capone out of business overnight - and we can do the same to the drug lords and terrorists who make over $500bn a year selling illegal drugs around the world."
Tom Lloyd, a former chief constable of Cambridgeshire, told the Guardian: "It is clearly right that police officers should enforce the laws passed by parliament, but they also have considerable knowledge of how inefficient and counterproductive that can be in the fight against the illegal drugs market.
"There is a growing realisation at quite senior detective level that we have to think about handling this differently."
Others backing Leap include a former Gwent chief constable, Francis Wilkinson, and a former Metropolitan police detective chief superintendent, Eddie Ellison. Separately, the government's drugs adviser, David Nutt, said that ecstasy and LSD, which are believed to be used by half a million young people every week, should be downgraded from class A.