Class A drugs should be decriminalised - UK Police Officer

[klr]

End war on drugs, says Durham police chief Mike Barton

Class A drugs should be decriminalised and drug addicts "treated and cared for not criminalised", according to a senior UK police officer.

Writing in the Observer, Chief Constable Mike Barton of Durham Police said prohibition had put billions of pounds into the hands of criminals.

He called for an open debate on the problems caused by drugs.

The Home Office reiterated its stance and said drugs were illegal because they were dangerous.

'Controlled'

The chief constable - who is the intelligence lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers - said he believed decriminalisation of Class A drugs would take away the income of dealers, destroy their power, and that a "controlled environment" would be a more successful way of tackling the issue.

He said when faced with the "extremely damaging" impacts of alcohol, his argument to decriminalise drugs may appear weakened, but called for an open and honest debate on the matter.

A petition is calling on the government to follow the advice of the Home Affairs Committee and introduce a Royal Commission on drug law reform.

Mr Barton said: "If an addict were able to access drugs via the NHS or something similar, then they would not have to go out and buy illegal drugs.

"Buying or being treated with, say, diamorphine is cheap. It's cheap to produce it therapeutically.

"Not all crime gangs raise income through selling drugs, but most of them do in my experience. So offering an alternative route of supply to users cuts their income stream off.

"What I am saying is that drugs should be controlled. They should not, of course, be freely available."

Mr Barton compared drugs prohibition to the ban on alcohol in the US in the 1920s which fuelled organised crime.

Mr Barton told the Observer: "Have we not learned the lessons of prohibition in history?"

"The Mob's sinister rise to prominence in the US was pretty much funded through its supply of a prohibited drug, alcohol. That's arguably what we are doing in the UK."

...

continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24320717

original article here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ike-barton

[Tyrannical]

Give them a free small dose each day they come in? I could think of worse ideas, and drug addicts can already get drugs. This might be enough to eliminate the criminal incentive.

[MrJonno]

While the drugs laws are pretty silly, its not really up to the police to decide what should be legal or not. That is the people via elected job

[JimC]

While the drugs laws are pretty silly, its not really up to the police to decide what should be legal or not. That is the people via elected job

I think you've missed the point of the OP. A senior police officer, based on his experience, was making a valid suggestion to government...

[Pappa]

He's not the first senior police officer to say that and he's not going to be the last either. He might as well be shouting into the wind though.

[Hermit]

Not only would such a move take the wind out of the sails of organised crime, but insurance premia would drop dramatically. It is estimated that 80% of all car thefts and burglaries are committed by drug addicts who need the money to feed their addiction. Oh, and the expense of keeping prisons would also drop significantly.

Unfortunately, all this seems to be lost to the average voter, and therefore to the members of parliament.

[cronus]

He's a Tory cop and this is a strawdog argument for Cameron and his ilk to kick down at the Tory conference this week. Proving they are tough on crime. Y'all suckers.

[klr]

One of the problems I have with this is that it does not appear to be a properly thought-out suggestion. "X is a problem, so do Y instead". But there are many more dimensions than just this to consider.

Alcohol and nicotine have been legal in these jurisdictions since time immemorial, yet we still have enormous problems with both.

Not only would such a move take the wind out of the sails of organised crime, but insurance premia would drop dramatically. It is estimated that 80% of all car thefts and burglaries are committed by drug addicts who need the money to feed their addiction. Oh, and the expense of keeping prisons would also drop significantly.

Unfortunately, all this seems to be lost to the average voter, and therefore to the members of parliament.

A very valid point, but I prefer to start the discussion from a different place: Why do we have drug addicts at all, and to what extent (if at all) should society tolerate them?

[mistermack]

Alcohol and nicotine have been legal in these jurisdictions since time immemorial, yet we still have enormous problems with both.

Yes that's true. But we don't have much of an organised crime problem with either of them. They are legal to use, and the government taxes them heavily. So a lot of the problems with both are dealt with by money generated from both.

If all drugs were legal, and taxed, the problems could be dealt with using taxes on the drugs. And we wouldn't be spending big money chasing and imprisoning drug traffickers.

Not that I'm confident that everything would be rosy. Some of the new drugs coming out are horrendously addictive.
But the incentive to develop new drugs is generally the fact that they are legal for a while. If all drugs were legal, and taxed, I can't see where the incentive would be to create new ones.

I would make a new law, that recreational drugs would have NO patent protection in law, so the major players would have no incentive to develop them.

The reality is that nowadays, if you want any drug, you can easily get it. That's not going to change, if they make them legal. So I don't see an explosion in drug use happening. Anyway, there have been trials around the world, so we should be able to predict what would happen by now.

[klr]

While there may not be much crime attributable to people looking for money to buy alcohol or cigarettes, we certainly have a crime/social order problem due to with alcohol-fuelled behaviour. If certain psychotic and other drugs were to be legalised .. well, I wouldn't want to go there.

Re taxing drugs: Look at the illegal trade in cigarettes. "Legalising" does not necessarily lead to taxation, but if it does, it will just encourage illicit trade, and we could be back to square one. Any decriminalisation would have to also incorporate state-controlled supply, and possibly controlled use as well.

Re patent protection: Many of the drugs have legitimate medical usage, which is why they get developed in the first place.

[Hermit]

One of the problems I have with this is that it does not appear to be a properly thought-out suggestion. "X is a problem, so do Y instead". But there are many more dimensions than just this to consider.

Alcohol and nicotine have been legal in these jurisdictions since time immemorial, yet we still have enormous problems with both.

Yes, and an attempt to criminalise the consumption of alcohol proved so disastrous that it was abandoned after a few years, as you well know. And please don't try to argue the "if drugs are decriminalised their use will run rampant" line. A hundred years ago 87% of people smoked nicotine in England. When I arrived in Australia 30% of the population smoked it. Today 20% do. And look at Portugal. Do you see any increase in heroin addiction there? Of course not. What you can see, however, are fewer deaths, and less criminal activity associated with that drug's use.

[klr]

One of the problems I have with this is that it does not appear to be a properly thought-out suggestion. "X is a problem, so do Y instead". But there are many more dimensions than just this to consider.

Alcohol and nicotine have been legal in these jurisdictions since time immemorial, yet we still have enormous problems with both.

Yes, and an attempt to criminalise the consumption of alcohol proved so disastrous that it was abandoned after a few years, as you well know. And please don't try to argue the "if drugs are decriminalised their use will run rampant" line. A hundred years ago 87% of people smoked nicotine in England. When I arrived in Australia 30% of the population smoked it. Today 20% do. And look at Portugal. Do you see any increase in heroin addiction there? Of course not. What you can see, however, are fewer deaths, and less criminal activity associated with that drug's use.

Good heavens. I wasn't attempting to argue that decriminalisation was not the obvious way forward, which is what MM was arguing in support of the OP. I was merely pointing out (as per my earlier post) why certain lines of argument need to be framed in a much wider context, as part of a much wider debate. If "drugs are bad, criminalise them" is too narrow a view, then some of the opposing arguments are hardly much better IMHO. The wider debate should encompass not only other drugs such as alcohol and nicotine, but also any other area of the society or economy where there are questions over whether certain activities should be banned or otherwise restricted.

[mistermack]

While there may not be much crime attributable to people looking for money to buy alcohol or cigarettes, we certainly have a crime/social order problem due to with alcohol-fuelled behaviour. If certain psychotic and other drugs were to be legalised .. well, I wouldn't want to go there.

That's the whole point really. If legalising drugs led to any significant increase in useage, then I would agree it shouldn't be done. However, like I said previously, if you want any particular drug, you can easily get it, so I don't think we're managing to stop the supply. There might be some kind of deterrent, in that carrying illegal drugs could get you arrested. But I think this really just changes behaviour, rather than consumption.

The only way that you can find out for sure, is to do it. It has been done as trials in a few places, so the results should give an idea of what might happen.

[Svartalf]

While the drugs laws are pretty silly, its not really up to the police to decide what should be legal or not. That is the people via elected job

Policemen don't decide what laws they get to enforce, but they surely know what laws do more harm than good when they enforce them, and if they dont get the decide, they get to advise the lawmakers and vote on who sits in whaitehall.

[JimC]

While there may not be much crime attributable to people looking for money to buy alcohol or cigarettes, we certainly have a crime/social order problem due to with alcohol-fuelled behaviour. If certain psychotic and other drugs were to be legalised .. well, I wouldn't want to go there.

That's the whole point really. If legalising drugs led to any significant increase in useage, then I would agree it shouldn't be done. However, like I said previously, if you want any particular drug, you can easily get it, so I don't think we're managing to stop the supply. There might be some kind of deterrent, in that carrying illegal drugs could get you arrested. But I think this really just changes behaviour, rather than consumption.

The only way that you can find out for sure, is to do it. It has been done as trials in a few places, so the results should give an idea of what might happen.

Keep a really strong deterrent to violent behaviour fuelled by either alcohol or drugs. Maybe, instead of there being a slight tendency to excuse behaviour based on substance abuse, make it liable to an increased penalty.

And/or, make the people who sold the (legal) drugs or alcohol to the person who committed a crime of violence under their influence partly liable...