Saturday 2 August 2008

Top UK Cop Calls for Prescription Heroin

Is it just me or are more and more of the police hierarchy questioning their own laws and calling for prescription heroin? 

I notice in the UK that it seems to be happening quite a bit lately as crime continues on it's steady rise, ever since they stopped prescribing heroin and morphine for opiate addiction. In fact, there was very little drug related crime in the UK prior to the phasing out of prescription heroin in the 1970s, which was prompted by the influence of the "War on Drugs" on UN international drug policies.

Calls for radical change to current drug policies will not be ignored forever but many governments are resisting for as long as possible. The UK is a classic example of politicians at work, ignoring evidence and making government policy a popularity tool for  their own political party. The UK government commissioned an in-depth enquiry into the drug problem but the results were ignored because of a possible backlash from the media and voters. The same for the South Australia government who went one step further by introducing new laws completely polar to the findings of their own enquiry. 

QUESTION: Do governments keep having enquiries in the hope that one day they will get  different answers to the same questions?

ANSWER: Only if it involves drug policy.

Top UK Cop Calls for Prescription Heroin

James Lyons. Political Correspondent July 2008

UK Mirror

Heroin should be handed out on the NHS because the fight against drugs is failing, a senior police officer said yesterday.

Chief Constable Tom Lloyd believes giving users a free fix could stop them turning to crime and harming others.

He also warned locking up junkies was not working. The Cambridgeshire police boss said: "If people are addicted to heroin and getting it on the street, that causes problems.

"Let's give it on the NHS and stabilise communities, then sort out the other problems. We have doubled the number of prisoners over the last 20 years. It hasn't worked and never will."

Mr Lloyd spoke out after a report from the UK Drug Policy Commission warned that the fight against dealers and traffickers is being lost. It found attempts to shut off supplies have had almost no impact on Britain's £5.3billion drugs market. Police and customs spend hundreds of millions of pounds targeting smugglers and dealers.

But their busts have not curbed demand or street level supply. The number of Class A seizures in England and Wales more than doubled between 1996 and 2005.

But the report pointed out that up to four-fifths of smuggled drugs would need to be seized to put major traffickers out of business - levels never achieved around the world.

It called for more to be done to reduce the impact of drugs on communities by tackling gang violence and prostitution.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I agree, Heroin ( or similar) on prescription should be considered as an alternative to Methadone. I've just come off 'done after 4 years ...ironically it's harder to kick that Heroin itself. I'm not homeless and have never committed any crime to support my habit. Making Heroin illegal, or morphine only for the terminally ill, only serves to support organised crime and propagate homeless street people, and what they get is often nasty stuff for high prices. I am so frustrated by it I am thinking of moving England. The politicians here are too scared - and they will want advice from the medical community, and they are too scared to talk in favour of it.