‘The Islamic Republic has emerged as the leading country fighting drug trafficking after having 85 percent of the world’s total opium seizures.’

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8903191132

America supports Afghan drugs. Most of the Money from the Drugs goes to Karzia, his brother and America’s other alias. Most of the Drugs go to Russia and China.

Win-Win for the Zionists.

What would happen if Russia and China start taking steps against the Drugs?

More Opium wars?

Craig, In your quote you say ; “I think it’s very important to understand that a great deal of drugs trade is organized and controlled by members of the Karzai government. These are the people whom British and NATO troops are keeping in power,”

But isn’t this just shifting sands. The individuals within Afghanistan operating poppy production and heroine production (assuming its produced in Afghanistan) simply loyal to whichever power is in authority?

Ans although I suspect there will be organised groups, wouldn’t they be likely to be smaller tribal groups who will sell to the highest bidder?

The West likes the idea of organised crime because its then ‘easier’ to hunt down but I don’t believe its nearly that simple.

‘In the process of penetrating the world drug trade, US narcotic agents invariably stumbled upon the CIA’s involvement in drug-trafficking.’

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18769

Under Karzia Drugs are produced at an industrial scale.

They have never ever been produced like this.

The Americans have ditches and canals dug to water the puppy plants. The Americans make roads to transport the drugs north to Russia and East to china.

Karzais police don’t try and prevent crime, because they are too busy protecting the drugs.

The Army uses their trucks to transprt it north to uzbeckistan, and than to Russia.

It isn’t just about people growing puppies, that has always happened.

It is this industrial production, where the entire state structure is devoted to Drug production and nothing but drug production.

This has never happened. Even during British colonialism and the last opium wars, it wasn’t as bad as it is now.

Afghanistan used to produce many things, including drugs.

Now it produces nothing but drugs and little else.

‘In the process of penetrating the world drug trade, US narcotic agents invariably stumbled upon the CIA’s involvement in drug-trafficking.’

Another spurious web site quote.

“The Americans have ditches and canals dug to water the puppy plants. The Americans make roads to transport the drugs north to Russia and East to china.”

But no one objects to these ditches, nor the roads, nor the trucks moving, what? the poppies or the processed opium? The Russians are bitching about the problem but not one of them thinks to say the Yanks are bringing it all in, I don’t think they would have a problem squealing about it even if we Brits would.

This is getting into global conspiracy again and really isn’t helpful.

“This has never happened. Even during British colonialism and the last opium wars, it wasn’t as bad as it is now.”

The Opium wars were in the mid 19th Century, how can you possibly draw a comparison between then and now in an entirely different region amongst a completely different culture?

Stranger and stranger

http://www.chavezcode.com/2009/12/cia-agents-assassinated-in-afghanistan.html

People take drugs in destructive and constructive ways. Destructive drug use occurs when people feel disconnected from the ongoing process of life. People who feel that they are contributing to an enhanced future for themselves and others will use drugs in a recreational manner; just another part of life. Drug use as escapism occurs when people feel that there is something they need to escape from. Drugs are not unique in this respect; any pleasure can be recreational or escapist.

Escapism itself is addictive; the stimulus looses its power over time and has to be increased. In the case of drugs this leads to the use of more powerful substances.

The large, impersonal commercial systems, whether ‘legal’ or ‘criminal’, promote escapism through consumption. Simultaneously, they offer little involvement in the social fabric which provides a feeling of contribution towards an improved future. Commercialism treats people as ‘consumers’ (promoting meaningless escapism), and those same people as ‘producers’ (meaningless components in the production process).

People need meaningful lives; drug use will find its rightful place in such an environment. ‘Afghan Opium’ should hold similar connotations as ‘French Wine’ or ‘Scotch Whiskey’, and the production zones should be similarly peaceful.

“Stranger and stranger”

Yes you are.

Can anyone supply a direct link to Craig’s video?

Was quite underwhelmed with the main RT video on the link in Craig’s post. It’s good to highlight that Afghanistan is increasing the global availability of heroin, but it didn’t (sufficiently) point out that it was the invasion, or perhaps more importantly the resultant installation of Karzai, that achieved this.

Furthermore, the strong prohibition message is totally regressive. The war on drugs has been lost, and news outlets that continue to fail to report the view that drugs should be legalised and controlled, worldwide, is not informing the viewing public properly.

If I remember the news rightly, the government once considered developing a biological agent that would kill poppy fields and make them useless, but politicians or public servants were afraid to be seen to attack poor countries with biological weapons. Perhaps the compliance of the UK towards the USA for once could do some good: let the Obama administration know about this, so they turn the screws on the UK to develop and facilitate the use of such weapons to put the drug barons of the Asian poppy region out of business permanently, and also their counterparts in South America!

Two apt poems from Counterpunch Poets’ Basement.

Our Good Side

by JOHN TAYLOR

We don’t persecute others

For their religious beliefs

Or political affiliations

*Until we have to

We don’t abuse children

*In front of other people

We don’t mistreat women

*Unless they ask for it

We don’t engage in genocide

*If God hasn’t commanded it

We don’t slaughter civilians in mud huts

*Because we enjoy it

We don’t wage

Wars of imperial aggression

Except for when we do

*We don’t torture much

Jon Taylor lives in Nashville, TN.

The lines with an * are in italics in the original.

aa~~

Poppy Fields Forever

by KEMMER ANDERSON

Between the battlefields at Flanders

and Afghanistan, the poppies grow

a Taliban stash of weapons. We helicopter

out for Kandahar to spread the gospel of empire.

Between the bribery and fixed Islamic law,

Predators seek out the wandering warriors

who disappear into huts ruled by ancient warlords.

A sniper holds the rifle for a moment then vanishes

into mountain sanctuaries surrounded by time.

Terror hides behind centuries of armies

feeding the fields with blood and body parts

from the last column of Alexander’s troops

picked off one by one by arrow. Now planted

on the road from Kabal, the IED blows out the brains

smoked up by the power that funds gravestones

and earth that cover up Hamid Karzai’s groping hand.

Kemmer Anderson, while teaching “Flanders Field,” drew a poetic line to the poppy fields in Afghanistan. He can be reached at kanderso@mccallie.org.

I would be curious to know what your thoughts on Russian media in general are Craig. The perceived thought is that it’s very controlled and nothing comes out without government say so. How free would you say the media is?

Somebody,

thank you for these poems. You shouldn’t really publish an e-mail address without obfuscating it a bit, as it will be ‘harvested’ and spammed without mercy. Even if it appears on a website, it may be protected from harvesting software by various technical means used there.

Abe Rene,

I strongly disagree. There are probably unknown dangers from such a biological agent. But also, the drug and its production are not the problem. The concentration of power and weapons around its production, and its illicit distribution are.

Whiskey is a highly refined form of an addictive and potentially fatal drug, alcohol. Should other countries develop biological agents to wipe out the production of whiskey?

thank you for these poems. You shouldn’t really publish an e-mail address without obfuscating it a bit, as it will be ‘harvested’ and spammed without mercy. Even if it appears on a website, it may be protected from harvesting software by various technical means used there.

Clark at June 14, 2010 1:13 PM

Great post. I couldn’t agree more – prohibition facilitates racketeering and corruption whether by criminals or “criminals” as in our political establishment.

Redders, I have looked at your site and came away with the impression that you are an honest and deeply frustrated ex-policeman. Do you not agree that the legislators are often the most corrupt of all in our society?

You of all people may like to see one of my heroes (the late Thomas Szasz) on the very issue of drug prohibition and human liberty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mojxtnm3fA4

@ScouseBilly

Your assessment is probably right. I hate injustice and legislators are often politically corrupt but what’s worse is not to stand up in the face of injustice and speak out.

The problem isn’t the corrupt doing their thing, they form a small proportion of society, its the people that stand by and watch them whether by compliance or inaction.

I’ll have a look at your link, thanks.

@ScouseBilly

Really interesting clip. I have, I believe like most people, the instinct to ban things I fear, especially ‘illegal’ drugs but my rational side says its a stupid idea. I don’t know what the figures are but I would be prepared to bet that most ‘drug related’ deaths are as a consequence of, HIV/Aids from infected needles and overdoses from badly cut deals quite apart from the violence it causes.

The fact is that even if its decriminalised there will still be a criminal class who will put it to their own use but from almost every other angle, it has to be a solution to most of the problems.

Clark: I’m all for having any biological agent well-tested. We benefit from such agents in the form of vaccines regularly. Given that, I’m all for spraying poppy fields to stop this vile trade.

No-one’s come up with a way to make the production of alcohol impossible. In any case hard drugs are more dangerous than wine, so Europeanising the popular culture of alcohol may be as good a method as any for dealing with alcohol abuse.

@Abe Rene

Like I said, I may be wrong but I’ll bet its not the drugs themselves that causes all the deaths, its the associated consequences form it being illegal and uncontrolled.

Redders, I don’t fear “street” drugs. I fear what they may be cut with – thanks to their illegal status. IMO our government is criminally liable for this situation.

Dope Inc. continues to thrive while our prisons are over-crowded with self-medicators (harmers, if you prefer).

Most kids experiment with all sorts of vices and quickly make their minds up which they like, don’t like and what their personal limits are.

Ok some get it wrong, sometimes badly wrong but that’s true of any aspect of life. We make mistakes and for the most part learn fom them. This process tends to make us wiser, empathic and tolerant – in a word, human.

Prohibition inhibits human development at both the personal and societal level.

Abe Rene at June 14, 2010 4:59 PM

Abstention is your prerogative.

Proscription is not for you or any one else to dictate.

Surely the real reason for America to go to war in Afganistan was not the $1 Trillion worth of minerals recently discovered beneath the surface:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html

After all, George W. Bush told us that the reason was a War on Terror. Naturally this means that this wealth should fall not into the hands of Terrorists like the Taleban, but into the hands of a democratically elected Afghan government friendly to the West.

Bloody Zionist trolling back door rattlers. They seem to be just about everywhere, even in darkest Africa!

Scousebilly: I don’t have the power to proscribe all hard drugs like crack, heroin and ecstasy, or decree that the USA obliterate poppy fields with biological agents. But I am happy to encourage them to do it.

Unlike you Abe, I am a libertarian.

Redders and Abe Rene,

I have many years experience of drug use and drug users behind me. Drug users are diverse. Some don’t care what they take, they just want to ‘get out of their heads’, ie escapism. Some are drug quality hobbyists, comparing little samples from multiple sources, growing stuff themselves to see what they can achieve, etc. And you have the people who explore different states of mind, who use drugs to learn about themselves, or to be creative, or just to dance.

Then there’s the criminals. These people trade drugs for money, or to gain power, both of which are addictive. They’re interested in potency (for working out a price ratio), but not quality. They may take drugs themselves, but they generally don’t consume the stuff they sell, or even the same substance – it’s just ‘product’.

This can all be seen in legal drugs. You’ve the alcoholic, the dependent personality who has to take something, anything, the social drinker, the home-brew hobbyist, the connoisseur, the young drinker under peer group pressure. And how many tobacco execs smoke fags?

Illegal drugs are no different. Drug problems are about people, not substances.

Yes, when drugs do damage it is in various ways, many of which are to do with prohibition, and the resultant secrecy and social taboo. This was seen clearly during US prohibition.

I suspect that Arsalan is right, that drug production and supply from Afghanistan has been ‘weaponised’, covertly directed towards the countries that certain groups would like to see disadvantaged, while raising plenty of money and selling plenty of weapons.

Clark,

Big Pharma dwarfs even the heroin trade when it comes to weaponised narcotics.

Aided and abetted by criminals that have taken a hypocritic (sic) oath.

PS. Scousebilly/Redders: On the subject of hard drugs, given that prohibition is liable to lead to crime, I think the methods of the Dutch may be as wise as any.

Scousebilly,

I really sympathise with our doctors. They have a big workload and put in long hours. They also have to keep up with developments in medication, and here they are vulnerable. Well funded concerns (Big Pharma included) warp the literature and the research, funding research under non-disclosure agreements, and funding counter research to discredit inexpensive or natural treatments, and simple preventative measures. I strongly doubt that many doctors are malicious.

Clark,

I wasn’t implying all doctors by any means. I refer to many psychiatrists and doctors that have been politicised like Donaldson and WHO/ EU/Pharma scum.

Your post at 5.45PM is very informed and analgous to prostitution in terms of the peddled orthodox myth as opposed to reality.

‘The Best-Known Afghan Business’

http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=3095

Scousebilly: ‘Libertarian’ is a good word, not a bad word, as far as I am concerned. So I am for democratic debate, for instance. But poppy fields – no, I’m all for preventing them producing opium. Likewise I approve of efforts directed at preventing undemocratic regimes getting hold of atomic weapons. If, by some chance, Iran has any secret A-bomb factories that share the fate of Osirak, I won’t shed any tears, libertarian sympathies or no.

Abe Rene,

Craig’s argument, that there is a shortage of medical opiates, is important; Afghan opium production should certainly be used in that direction.

Also, opium itself is not so bad. Some of our finest literature was written under its influence, or by users, in those days not so long ago when it wasn’t prohibited. The same goes for cocaine – I certainly wish that I could have nipped out and bought some last time I had a toothache.

The refining of opium into morphine, and then isomerisation into diamorphine or heroin (how it is named depends upon whether the usage is legal or proscribed, not chemical structure) occur largely to increase potency and hence value, so that smugglers can avoid detection.

Clark: You make a good point about cultivation for medical usage. This would have to be done under careful supervision to prevent abuse. My understanding is that most if not all Asian and South American poppy fields are not intended for such use, not would such vast tracts be necessary.

Abe, the crop isn’t a problem, it’s prohibition. Look up industrial hemp prohibition in the US and see the, oft asked, “cui bono” expose some wealthy and powerful beneficiaries. Then ask yourself why we have a “war on drugs”.

Think about it.

Thank you, Clark, on all counts.

And to most of the others, Scousebilly, Abe Rene, Redders, anonymous poster, somebody, everybody (except Neil Baxter, who, miraculously given his reportedly Dickensian or perhaps, since he keeps claiming to be in a poor country, Conradian, level of poverty, seems still to be around) and of course, Craig himself, thank you also, I think you’ve all made very valid points.

Much of what Big Pharma does is self-perpetuating and self-aggrandising.

Suddenly, I find everyone and his dog is on anti-cholesterol medication on the basis of very questionable evidence. There’s a place for it, of course, but not as mass preventative measure! It’s nuts.

Doctors all too often are forced to be bureaucrats, tick this box, follow this flow diagram, much of it for most people is bullshit. Managerial bullshit. The grey men (yes, and women) have taken over and have turned the country into a lunatic asylum where everyone has OCD – points, points, points! League-tables! Corporate image.

But of course, it’s not just big business, it’s alienated society as a whole. All too often doctors are secular priests – people come with stuff with which in the past they would’ve taken to their priest. The populace expect and demand drugs. Many people live shit lives and need, demand, expect, something – anything – to blot out the pain. Well, of course, The City Of London rides high on cocaine. Perhaps this part of the human condition. That’s part of the job.

The swine flu ‘pandemic’ (which, far from being a Pharaonic plague, as one of my public health colleagues quipped at the time, was really ‘epidemic cold’), was a prime example of mass hallucination. Yet we were being told this and that and Tamiflu and this and that and Tamiflu and this and that and Relenza and this and that and the other.

So there I was, last summer, dressed-up like a Mediaeval plague quack, sticking metal swabs up people’s noses. People with colds. Pointless. A pantomime.

It was being pushed by learned guys with smooth voices, that kind of smooth, BBC voice that oozes authority, you know, guys in bow-ties, who, when questioned, like: “Excuse me, dude, what the fuck are we doing here? Shouldn’t we be keeping these drugs for when they’re really needed like in 1919 or SARS or something and not promoting viral resistance at the drop of a hat, I mean, the flip of a hankie (!snort it, suck it, inject it!)?” would respond with arrogance – much as those (whether deemed among their own elite as ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ or ‘eccentric’ or ‘streetwise’) in positions of power and influence in literary London respond to people like me, a variation on:

“Shut up, you stupid provincial wog.”

I think it’s common knowledge that most of our post-industrial diseases are a result of wealth mal-distribution, obesity/ lifestyle, crap environment, industrialised food production and crap, processed, hormone-injected/ fed food. The remedies – as during the time of A.J. Cronin, though in very different ways – are primarily economic and societal.

The secret is: never trust a man in a bow-tie.

N’Drangheta-Camorra-Mafia-Italy-EU-Russia-Albania-China-Colombia-West Africa-Everywhere.

Organised crime has not infiltrated the world ecomomy. It is the world economy. Porn is bigger than oil, bigger than arms. It is inside this computer, it is in the food I ate this evening, it is in my tissues. It is my tissues. It is me.

Abe Rene,

cultivation for medical purposes was a point that Craig made in his video interview, with which I agree. I don’t know how much production this would account for, but quite a bit, I suspect.

Reducing abuse is a matter of education and integration. I’ve been told (I haven’t verified) that in France, it is quite normal for older children to be served wine, watered down 50%, at the dinner table, and that this is believed to reduce teenage drink problems, by breaking the mystique of alcohol.

Many tribal societies use intoxicants. Older users guide novice users through the experience. The lack of a taboo integrates drug use into everyday life, whereas prohibition produces subcultures.

People can intoxicate themselves by so many means that prohibition cannot work. Solvents, petrol, cleaning agents, painkillers, plants of many varieties. Just about anything that will kill you will intoxicate you if you take a smaller quantity of it. Drugs are ‘drugs’ precisely because their toxicity is *low* compared to how much they alter how you feel. Prohibition causes people who want to become intoxicated to ingest substances that are *more* toxic.

And people need a life. How many people are drugging themselves because all they see ahead of them is being a ‘consumer’ and a worker (or not even employed) in a pointless system in which they have little self determination, and being permanently in debt for the privilege? If people have an engaging life, they’d rather live it than be permanently out of their minds.

Suhayl,

hello. That’s a good post, and it really made me laugh. I know, it is serious, but you have to laugh, what else can we do?

These smooth talking empty suits that drone on, pontificating about how everyone else should live. They’re everywhere and they really piss me off.

I can just see you, sticking swabs up people’s noses…

I know, it’s surreal, Clark, it really is. Thanks again. While doing the noses, I kept thinking about the Gogol story I mentioned earlier on another thread, ‘The Nose’. Here’s some light – or rather, some soft – relief. It’s better than Viagra, heroin, Tamiflu, Prozac and better even than old tea-bags:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv0eN2s56cM&feature=related

Clark/Scousebilly

The evils of prohibition and the need for quality of life need to be considered. But I would add that the availability of the stuff is part of the problem too. If the fields were destroyed it would be more difficult to get hold of the stuff. It would not make it impossible for youngsters to experiment with self-poisoning (which is what we are talking about) but it would make it more difficult. And so I say: let the bugs loose on the Asian and South American poppy fields. Cold Turkey for all!

Abe Rene at June 14, 2010 11:50 PM

Poison is defined by the dose not by the consensus of others.

Are you a control freak, Abe?

Ah, Soft Machine. Thank you. For its title alone, I love ‘Snodland’. I have the Matching Mole album. It is the same band, but all written by Robert Wyatt. ‘Matching Mole’ is a pun on “machine molle”, French for ‘Soft Machine’.

A related band, named just for you Suhayl; National Health, performing The Collapso. After the improvised introduction, this incredibly complex piece is performed live, identical note for note with the studio version on ‘Of Queues and Cures’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzsTdY5Xlwo

Abe Rene,

they’ll never destroy the fields, except as a showcase, so that some other region can become the producer. To fight a war you need an enemy with funds. War on terror, war on drugs. Of course the ‘War on Drugs’ could have been ‘won’ decades ago, by just the method you propose. How many times has the CIA been caught with its grubby little mits on the stash?

Hell, one of the probable reasons that the Taliban were attacked is because they’d nearly eradicated the poppy crop.

Clark at June 15, 2010 12:10 AM

Correct – have a eureka on me

Scousebilly

I wouldn’t say so. If you, a mature adult, want to ingest something dangerous (or go tombstoning or bungee-ing off London Bridge) that’s your business, as far as I am concerned. But in the case of schoolkids – I would wish to protect them from real danger by making it as difficult as possible for them to get the stuff. So bombs away on the poppy fields, burn the lot!

repeating again–

it was the British who led the way in Afghanistan,with operatives like Lords Avebury and Bethell using Radio Free Kabul to enlist mujahadeen.

The “arc of crisis” Central Asian strategy is often credited to Brzezinski but really came out of London via Bernard Lewis of the Mackinder school of international geo-politics (RIIA).

Far too many people see Britain as the junior partner or poodle.In fact in the special relationship the shots are called from London.

People are not generally aware of this because the London-based system of usury-sorry international finance,which was the real reason behind most of the revolutions and wars of the last century uses a supine media and a set of what Ezra Pound called “court historians” to obscure the facts.

The CIA isn’t going to give up its’ opium profits that easily…

Opium production EXPLODED after the US invasion.

Ever wonder why?

CIA Heroin has a premium over generic in the world market. Good profits too!

Posted by: Ydotheyhateus on Jul 16, 2008 8:28 AM

“”

There was a point in Afghanistan’s tortured history when the future looked bright, when a determined effort to lift the country and its people out of backward agrarian feudalism almost succeeded.

It began with the formation of the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) back in the sixties, which opposed the autocratic rule of King Zahir Shar. The growth in popularity of the PDPA eventually led to them taking control of the country in 1978, after a coup removed the former Kings’ cousin, Mohammed Daud, from power.

The coup enjoyed popular support in the towns and cities, evidenced in reports carried in US newspapers. The Wall Street Journal, no friend of revolutionary movements, reported at the time that ’150,000 persons marched to honour the new flagthe participants appeared genuinely enthusiastic.’ The Washington Post reported that ‘Afghan loyalty to the government can scarcely be questioned.

Upon taking power, the new government introduced a program of reforms designed to abolish feudal power in the countryside, guarantee freedom of religion, along with equal rights for women and ethnic minorities. Thousands of prisoners under the old regime were set free and police files burned in a gesture designed to emphasise an end to repression. In the poorest parts of Afghanistan, where life expectancy was 35 years, where infant mortality was one in three, free medical care was provided. In addition, a mass literacy campaign was undertaken, desperately needed in a society in which ninety percent of the population could neither read nor write.

The resulting rate of progress was staggering. By the late 1980s half of all university students in Afghanistan were women, and women made up 40 percent of the country’s doctors, 70 percent of its teachers, and 30 percent of its civil servants. In John Pilger’s ‘New Rulers Of The World’ (Verso, 2002), he relates the memory of the period through the eyes of an Afghan woman, Saira Noorani, a female surgeon who escaped the Taliban in 2001. She said: “Every girl could go to high school and university. We could go where we wanted and wear what we liked. We used to go to cafes and the cinema to see the latest Indian movies. It all started to go wrong when the mujaheddin started winning. They used to kill teachers and burn schools. It was sad to think that these were the people the West had supported.”

Under the pretext that the Afghan government was a Soviet puppet, which was false, the then Carter Administration authorised the covert funding of opposition tribal groups, whose traditional feudal existence had come under attack with these reforms. An initial $500 million was allocated, money used to arm and train the rebels in the art in secret camps set up specifically for the task across the border in Pakistan. This opposition came to be known as the mujaheddin, and so began a campaign of murder and terror which, six months later, resulted in the Afghan government in Kabul requesting the help of the Soviet Union, resulting in an ill-fated military intervention which ended ten years later in an ignominious retreat of Soviet military forces and the descent of Afghanistan into the abyss of religious intolerance, abject poverty, warlordism and violence that has plagued the country ever since.

Brzezinski confirms: “Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

Thanks, Clark (23:58), brilliant stuff! Music for either late at night in pitch darkness or else in the middle of an open field with white rabbits in summer with the sky enveloping one’s mind.

Mae, please tell me more that story about the cartoons – it is fascinating and also rather worrying. Is there a link?

What happened, did a guy get six months in jail, commuted to two years’ suspended, for leaving a copy of ‘Private Eye’ lying around in a chapel, ironically, at ‘John Lennon’ (he of the scurrilous cartoons, the Walrus drugs, the wanton nakedness, and the “I don’t believe in…”) airport in Liverpool?

I am not a retired policeman but a very busy current policeman. I look at your postings with interest. I see everyday the car crashes that people on drugs call their lives. Legalising drugs wont help one jot, drugs would still need to be paid for by addicts and prices at the moment are at an all time low. Even the pharmaceutical companies couldn’t undercut them. The posters who say alcohol is a drug are correct and that wrecks lives too. Would it be banned if it had just been invented? A can of strong beer cost a quid. But people beg steal and kill for a can of it. Making drugs legal wont stop addicts breaking into cars or selling their bodies. Instead of buying from the local dealer to buy their crack, heroin or skunk they will go down boots and buy one hit get another free deal I don’t think so? Please don’t have a romantic image of intelligent people sitting around in cafes taking opium before going back to the office. It isn’t like that in the real world that I see. I see sick 30 something girls with no teeth and scabs all over them selling blow jobs for a fiver to buy their next hit. Would you have a better conscience if they spent that fiver in Lloyds the chemist or Superdrug? Alcohol is not addictive to the vast majority of people that use it. Drugs are addictive to most who use them. People keep saying Holland this Holland that. Holland has very recently toughened its drug legislation realising its social experiment has led to huge drug abuse amongst its population. I took a male suffering mental health issues to the local mental health unit recently. Whilst waiting the customary hour for the doctor to turn up I was speaking to a very friendly mental health nurse from Ghana. I don’t know why but most persons working in mental health units are from West Africa? He showed me the ward of 14 patients and said everyone in here uses cannabis why does everyone want to legalise it? They (meaning the politicians etc) don’t realise its a different drug to the one they smoked at university. I hope this gives some insight to the world that most don’t see and if you have seen it and truly believe that making it legal will help then maybe you have taken a bit too much yourself.

See this written answer of April 2009 regarding ‘Estimate of Afghanistan heroin/morphine derivatives available for export’:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/le6dgn

(Note the 2001 figure of 19 tonnes, compared with the most recent [2008] figure of 630 tonnes).

Note also the caveats galore…

Thanks, Steve, yes I recognise those same people as you’re mentioning; it’s as though they deteriorate before your eyes, in relation to heroin often within around five years; sometimes they die; and it all has a major impact on families. Here in Scotland, as well as illicit and licit drug addiction/ abuse, as you’ll know, alcohol is a particularly major issue. ‘Vomit Methadone’ is also a speciality of the chef: Drink-vomit-drink; a perfect communal recycling operation, very green, in all senses of the word.

You’ve rendered a very cogent argument against legalising currently illegal drugs.

I admit that I don’t know the answer(s), or even whether there is one/ many. Perhaps it is post-indutrial, post-religious society, several generations of broken families/ unemployment/ capitalism (of which, globally, organised crime is a major driver) or simply history and the march of the inevitable. Or a combination of all of these.

Can I ask you, what would you do? What’s your ‘prescription’ (if I may put it like that!) for society’s ills in relation to substance abuse and the associated issues? I’m genuinely interested to hear. Thanks.

Even if legalising (all ?) drugs changed nothing on “the street”, it would still have effects. It would deprive the Mafia of income, in favour of the State. I know, there will be a cry of “what’s the difference ?”. The difference is, the Mafia is who you don’t vote for. Also, the possibility of quality control, redress against ripoffs, etc etc. Maybe even, fewer people with reason to see the police as hostile ?

(Abe Rene, 12:14 – we don’t protect schoolkids from alcohol by bombing the breweries. Should we ? What about all the fields of tobacco ? How far do we go ? Coffee ? Tea ? “Pinpoint humanitarian surgical precision strikes with no more than acceptable levels of collateral damage” on Coca-Cola ? or why not ?).

Paying good prices for high-quality Afghan hash might be an improvement on the current state ? Give them a feasible alternative cash crop ? No, I don’t expect this to happen, on more than an individual level.

@steve

My point is that legalisation would help considerably in dealing with the filthy conditions and circumstances drug users have to resort to in order to take drugs. Needles and equipment would be available were they ‘legalised’ which would ‘help’ to reduce the growing AIDS problem because of cross infection from communal needles.

If the pharmaceutical companies engage in controlled production using, say, Afghanistan as a preferred, legal supplier, where are the criminals going to get their ‘cheap’ raw materials from then? Low prices depend on volume production, a fundamental business principle, therefore any raw material would likely be low volume and probably low quality.

Another point I made, and as an ex copper I witnessed it many times, is the death of addicts from a badly cut bag of Heroine, usually when it’s a good quality bag ironically and the user takes their usual hit only to find the stuff is twice the strength. Furthermore I never met an addict that wasn’t suffering from at least one communicable disease or other contracted from, usually, dirty needles and I can’t think of one incident where it was the drug itself that killed a user unless it was found to be an accidental overdose, in almost every case it was the diseases caused by the filthy kit they used. I have known ‘clean’ users, using heroine for years with seemingly little ill effects, in fact I know of people kept pain free for years on prescribed opiates.

Clark makes some great points in his earlier post, there are different types of users: experimenters, dabblers, social, reliant etc. and regardless of how hard we come down on them or their pushers they will never be eradicated but they can be managed which is the best we can hope for. No one suggests that ranges of products are available in Boots, there are an awful lot of clever people out there who have thought long and hard about how it could work. Our current system obviously isn’t working so instead of throwing out the baby with the Dutch bathwater, shouldn’t we examine what they have done, where they have gone wrong and how it can be fixed before condemning it as just another failed social experiment.

Having said all that I’ll throw this into the mix: “…….the NHS issued 39.1 million, repeat, more than Thirty Nine Million prescriptions for ‘drugs to tackle depression’ in England during the year 2009. This compares with 20.1 million in 1999.”

I got this from Peter Hitchin’s post in the Mail today (not that I read that rag but I get Peter’s daily emails) and this illustrates the NHS’s gross mis-management and abuse of prescription drugs because nulabour, whilst chucking money at new hospitals and polyclinics, savaged the most important element of the NHS, it’s staff. If you read Hitchin’s articles you will understand his views on our society’s requirement to poison children, with prescription drugs, suffering from a condition he doesn’t believe exists, ADHD. Now whilst I don’t entirely agree that it doesn’t exist I also agree with him that it is often used as to excuse bad parenting and appalling behaviour, unfortunately the only one that suffers is the child who is given a concoction of powerful, mind altering drugs to deal with it.

This is the fault of over zealous and over PC politicians who have meddled in the NHS at the micro level instead of leaving it to professionals to run so how do we think they would, or could manage control of drug abuse by legalizing it any better than they are, is quite beyond me.

If we allow politicians to deal with it we end up with global violence and a gradual breakdown of sections of our communities. Can commercialisation and legalisation possibly do any worse than that?

Steve,

the problem with taking The Netherlands as an example is that their policy created a sort of ‘drugs island’ in the EU. Of course it attracted drug users, and created a local concentration.

Drug prohibition is a relatively recent development. Were the problems really much worse before prohibition, before the 20th century? What happened with alcohol prohibition in the US? Didn’t alcohol addiction, contamination related health problems, and alcohol related crime all rise?

I have met drug addicts, thanks, though as I’m not a police officer I could simply walk away; respect to you for your work. I also remember the meths drinkers in Whitechapel. Unable to buy commercial alcohol, they moved on to something more toxic. I really have thought about this, I really do believe that prohibition causes far more problems than it solves, and no, I don’t think that my brain has addled yet.

Yes, thanks, Redders, in relation to legal drug misuse, I forgot to mention ADHD.

Peter Hitchens is right.

That’s another thing that shocks me – why are we dosing kids on anything when it’s quite obvious, even to simpletons like me, that crap food, often parenting issues (to be euphemistic) and the expanding addiction to digital media (ironic, eh?!) is what is messing-up children’s brains.

Except for a very few, specific, cases, in the long-term ADHD drugs are compounding the problem, in my view. We will reap what we have sown.

I thought ‘do no harm’ was supposed to be our motto?

But when I make this rather prudent observation, while privately some/ many agree with me, in essence officially I’m treated as though I were suggesting to Dr Liam Fox (most definitely a man in a bow-tie) that we put Trident/ “our nuclear deterrent” on the table with a view to getting rid of it.

But I’m a wild-eyed dervish, so what do I know?

We need someone prominent – and white, and with a bow-tie (sorry, but it’s true), someone like Peter Hitchens in other words but respected in the scientific and media communities – to stand up and say clearly that the emperor has no clothes.

Do we never learn?

Clark, you have fine brain and a perfctly aligned consciousness!

Yes indeed, respect to Steve and Redders. The regular police in Britain do an awful lot of good work which never gets sung about.

The problems arise when they’re used for reactionary political purposes – eg. the miners’ strike and by definition, some of the nefarious activities of Special Branch – and/or get dumped with catching the fall-out from socio-economic distortions.

Suhayl,

how I wish my consciousness were “perfectly aligned”; to what would one align it in this modern chaos?

The medicalisation of ‘mental disorders’ and the ‘preemptive’ administration of prescription drugs is clearly beneficial to the pharmaceutical companies. The benefit or detriment to patients will not be provable for decades. It is revealing that there is pressure on doctors to prescribe in specific ways from ‘managerial’ levels.

Redders,

thank you for those figures. When a society is dosing such a large proportion of the population with ‘drugs to tackle depression’, it must be time to ask what is wrong in that society to cause such unhappiness.

“But I’m a wild-eyed dervish, so what do I know?”…………..In a kilt as well!!!!!

I feel quite bitter about having been used as a political pawn during the Miners strike. We didn’t realise it until sometime after but we were given a massive pay rise before it all and then more overtime than we could cope with during it. Having said that we didn’t have anything like the level of violence the Yorkshire miners did, a lot of the lads I was Policing were my mates. The flying pickets were the problem, they turned up one day and really tried to stir up trouble but were told where to go…..by our miners!

Our Police forces are a shadow of what they were but hopefully this Government will release them from the PC, red tape, paperwork nightmare they are in now and allow them to do their job. The Police are, like any organisation, far from perfect but even Special Branch do much, much more good than they do harm.

Unfortunately we have been subject to the Politicisation of the Police over nulabours term in office, stop and search is a joke, the PC, kid gloves required to approach a black or asian youth is appalling, crime has gone haywire, penalties for offences are derisory because of the “I’m a victim not a criminal” culture which, unbelievably, led to more people being imprisoned; until the quite incredible policies of instructing magistrates and judges not to lock people up because of lack of space and, equally insane, early release.

You would imagine that someone like, say, Gordon Brown, the God fearing, Law abiding individual that he is would have twigged that, “we can’t lock them up and we have to let them go, gosh, we must be doing something wrong!” but no, he preferred prison ships, how unbelievably inhuman, and this was a political party purporting to represent ‘the working man’.

Sorry…….rant over.

Hijacked Craig’s thread again I’m afraid.

@Clark

I agree, we should be looking at the causes of the conditions but we also need to look at the treatments ‘not’ available like counselling which would solve many depressives problems. Drugs are perceived as the cheap alternative and although we can’t do without them, there are alternatives.

We have, in the UK, the most unbelievably large force of volunteer workers which could be put to good use in so many ways but is completely ignored as valueless by all our governments. Our religious communities, regardless of their faith could be mobilised to help many of these people. Given access to training they would be, I’m certain, only too pleased to help. They are usually capable organisers with lots of community contacts and lots of property which is invariable under utilised.

Spin off’s from all this are almost endless and positive. I would however add one proviso, everything needs to be unconditional, in other words there is no compulsion to join a Church, Mosque, Synagogue or whatever which would alienate a Muslim from going to their local Church or Synagogue for help.

If you want to see some of the problems the Police are having to endure internally, have a look at this report.

http://www.theftprotect.co.uk/library/articles/TooManyPoliceChiefs%202010.pdf

Suhayl

Thanks for your post I am an ordinary policeman that had a life before joining a rear commodity in the police. Most are fresh faced kids that havnt lived yet joining a job where you have to have lived to understand that you dont get black and white in the real world but shades of grey. To most policemen you are either a policeman which mostly in their cynical minds equals good. Or members of the public which equals bad or hasnt been caught yet. Police tend to marry each other drink with each other party with each other in an incestuous loop. Blocking out or tolerating non “job” people. We see the law as The Law that is always RIGHT. And if you have been arrested then you must have done something. Its time we stopped acting like judge dread turning up at “domestic incidents” couple shouting at each other or god forbid slapped each other! And arresting everybody because we have to. We need to be allowed to use our discretion and have time to help people. Refer them to counselling or housing agencies in a meaningful and caring way not to tick a box. The police Senior Managent are all by definition career coppers who know nothing of life. Left school went to Uni possibly smoked a joint then joined the Job and life finished. We should be allowed to prioritise the calls ourselves and get out of the police cars and re engage with the public. But god forbid I mention that at work or I will be told dont be stupid its dangerous out there the public might attack us! The police forget the public are walking around alone mostly un molested and not attacked on the streets. I feel we have got to the stage where the only option is to have a two or three tier police force as we are getting but in a typicaly British way where everything is a compromise. The police we have at the moment should be tucked away in barracks or parked up in vans out of sight. Probably armed permanently. Not allowed out unless it all goes wrong. Leaving PCSO’s and enlightened police officers to patrol the Streets talking to people helping people. Becoming part of the community again as what was intended with Safer Neighbourhood policing. Which fell apart when targets and best practise was brought in aswell as putting unsuitable officers in the job. When this has been completed and the tiers have stabilized. It may be possible to get some trust in the police and justice system again. You cant have a swiss army knife univefrsal policeman anymore. Its broken you cant expect these kids to be all things to all people.

Thanks, Redders, as always that’s very illuminating and also captivating. If you are a ‘hijacker’, then to varying extents so are we all, and in any case, with your posts the destination of the vehicle is conducive to the overall journey (it’s a journey, man!).

Btw, I don’t have a kilt, unfortunately, but I do have a couple of woollen tartan ties – not bow-ties, I hasten to add – which I sport on cold days in winter. Whether one can whirl efficiently in a tartan tie and the architectonics of the resultant cosmic movement is likely to be the subject of much debate among aeronautical engineers.

Regards.

Steve, those are fantastic and deeply humane insights from the coal-face as it were, thanks so much. One doesn’t tend to hear this kind of account in the MSM or in the other media, perhaps because the ‘black and white’ mentality appeals too easily to many people in the public also and because it’s not ‘dramatic’, but of course the crucial thing is it’s real.

On a lighter note, a lot of police seem to marry nurses, I find. I’ve often wondered whether it might be those long, nocturnal hours stopping people killing one another in A and E Depts, or maybe it’s just the uniforms… (!)

Suhayl

Probably just the uniforms and the nocturnal hours.

Where I am unfortunately we dont get on well with the local hospitals I guess they see the same shit we do and despair.

Steve, I much appreciate your comments coming from the sharp end as it were.

However, I remember a discussion I had with a junior doctor regarding smoking.

He rightly pointed out the chronic cases of emphycema, cancer and other chronic disease that he came across on a daily basis.

I pointed out to him as I will to you that you are both conditioned by your contact with the extremes, not the typical.

I understand that your job is to uphold the law but I believe that an adult libertarian considered approach to vice in this country is long overdue.

Steve,

I note some similarities between your comment and Suhayl’s. Police officers and doctors, it seems, are being pressured by higher authority rather than being encouraged to exercise their judgement.

This is precisely what I was referring to when I wrote of people stuck in a “pointless system in which they have little self determination”. I think the problem is quite general. Craig wrote about it on reference to health, education and ‘consultants’.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/07/auditors_bribe.html

Redders,

yes, there is not nearly enough councelling available. Stick everyone on pills and forget about them seems to be the order of the day. One councellor I know is very upset about the current approach. She says it is all ‘target orientated’ (reminicent of Suhayl’s ‘flowcharts’) and that attention should go to the quality of the relationship between counceller and client. A social worker friend has told me of managerial interference that wrecked an entire department by demotivating the real workers, while these two managers hid in their upstairs office doing – what, exactly? Psychologists are incensed that their judgement is to be subordinated to a set of ‘Best Practices’.

‘Management Culture’ has to go.

@Steve

A good post, could only have come from a Copper with insight gained from another working environment.

I joined at 19 and became almost what you describe in terms of socialising etc. and Suhayl, guess who I married!!!

I also quit for some of those reasons as well but mainly because of the Chiefs having said that, we had much more autonomy then than you guys do now and I just couldn’t spend 5 minutes in the job any longer.

My social life is now completely different and the only ex Coppers I keep in touch with are my 3 mates I have known since Primary school, we all joined at the same time but they went on to retirement. Not so sure they should have.

My belief after 9 or 10 years in the job was that no one under 21 should be recruited and they should have held down a meaningful job since leaving school. Accelerated promotion schemes need to be abandoned, I met more bad coppers as a consequence of those schemes than any other, unfortunately most of them were promoted, predictably.

If you take a trip to my blog there are two really good articles I found recently, posted under ‘Flat Earth News’ in the Blogroll, and all of you guys will love the video I have posted from Aus.

@Suhayl

LOL……..I re read your comments on meeting Nurses. My wife worked in Glasgow Royal A&E department, I was rarely out of there as I worked in Easterhouse for a number of years but we never met, that was meant for a bar in Park Circus. That fickle finger of fate

Steve, you’ve written some good stuff here. Maybe you should write a book – if you wrote a novel, you could put your experiences in without naming names.

As one who grew up with Dixon of Dock Green, in spite of its cosy naivety, it mirrored the perception and respect that the average person had for the police in those days. Needless to say the fictional hero had almost complete autonomy displaying common sense and worldly wise judgement. Ok he was a PR role model portraying the bobby on the beat as a respected member of the community, but isn’t that an ideal that could be aimed for?

Redders, I’m sure you could write a manifesto on how to restore the credibility of, and public confidence in, the police.

I can’t help wondering if Tony Blair’s ideas for police and community were borne more out of The Professionals and The Sweeney.

Wow, Redders, when I wrote that post, that was exactly what I was thinking of, that precise A and E Dept, which is often a very ‘hairy’ place to be, I understand. I also still work sometimes in Easterhouse.

Small world, eh. Oz sounds much better!

Clark, yes, you’re right, the imposition of management culture across everything was and is a big step in the slippery descent of humankind’s ability to cogitate. This is the true ‘invasion of the bodysnatchers’!

Redders, from your own blog: “I am an opinionated sod who who is uncompromising enough to believe there is a simple solution to every problem; it may prove painful at first but it will be worthwhile in the end.” I would have thought that destroying poppy fields with fire or germs would be right up your street, it would have that tang, that je ne sais quoi, that pizzaz (from a burned pizza, specifically), that hint of smoke from samosas microwaved for 10 minutes..”

PS. On microwaving samosas for 10 minutes – don’t. You have been warned.

Abe Rene at June 15, 2010 5:05 PM

That’s a fanciful, if remarkably delusional, conclusion to reach.

Scousebilly,

The delusion may be rather with those who don’t think that youngsters don’t need all the protection from dangerous substances that society can give them. As far as I am concerned, that includes destroying the supplies, in other words the poppy fields of Asia and South America. If the Americans who can do something about it read this stuff and think ‘Let’s get the ever-compliant Brits to turn over the Porton Down secret manual “How to destroy poppy fields by Bigger Better Bug No. 2″ and tells their Air Force “We’ve got a little job for you”, I say “Go for it!” The bugs ought to be adequately tested before use, of course. Wouldn’t want to kill off the Amazon forest and hence the rest of us for lack of oxygen, that goes without saying.

There is no doubt about it that the misuse of legal substances can also become a problem. As Clark says “I also remember the meths drinkers in Whitechapel”. Now these people know that drinking meths is going to make them sick, yet their addiction is so strong that they persist in it.

Take my good friend Rufus, for example. He knows that his addiction makes him sick, and yet he still persists in it. He hasn’t graduated to Opium as yet, or even meths. His real problem is garbage. He can never get enough of it. And yet so strong is his addiction that there is no end to the misdemeanors that this popular reprobate get’s up to ?” Steaks off neighbors barbeques, pots off countertops and cookers, pizza’s out off storerooms. Yet despite these misdemeanors, Rufus is every bodies favorite addict in the community where he lives. Perhaps his addiction is due to an early disappointment. Bread to be an avalanche specialist in the Canadian Rockies, he was surplus to requirements. Half Alsatian, Half Belgium Sheep dog he has had to settle for being a private pet in Calgary

Ha! That’s a good one! You had me fooled until the last sentence! There must be a self-help group somewhere: Canines Anonymous.

Correcting typo. The text should read:

The delusion may be rather with those who don’t think that youngsters need all the protection from dangerous substances that society can give them.

You can tell that the writer of the blunder that occasioned this message wasn’t destined to be a high flyer (and indeed I’m not).

Aw, Abe, dinnae put yersel doon, mon, ye are a cosmic ray! We aw mak typos, mon, it’s happened since the dawn ae time. E’en Goad A’michty made a couple.

Ye’re a real pal Suhayl, did ye ken Oor Wullie?

Aye – Auchshooggle an a’!

Abe Rene,

I was going to look up numbers of opiate related deaths in under 16s to reply to you, and accidentally confirmed my own theories. All the headlines were shouting ‘mephedrone’ at me, a drug that was only prohibited recently. If you eradicate one drug another is developed or discovered to take its place. This was the motivation behind ‘designer drugs’; because they were new they weren’t illegal. This ongoing process is driven by prohibition.

The argument I was gathering data for is this. We never give youngsters “all the protection from [danger] that society can give them”, and it wouldn’t be right to try. For instance, thousands of under-16s are killed or injured annually by traffic. In 2008 there was only one under-15 drug related death (St George’s University of London annual report). (1) Protection effort must be applied so as to reduce harm the most; drugs should not be proiritised unduly, (2) Consider the case of giving youngsters “all the protection [from traffic] that society can give them”. Where does that lead?

But also I’d like to turn your argument around. A far off country discovers that each year some of their children are damaged by alcohol sourced from hops in the UK; one or two even die. So they genetically engineer and deploy a virus and wipe out UK hop production. Would you consider that reasonable?

Yes, typo’s happen, worry not!

Clark

I’m not sure that opiate-related deaths are the right figurs to look at, because what happens at school is more likely that youngsters start experimenting with drugs. Thus the most damage occurs later. So we need to look at opiate deaths in those who began as teenagers.

Actually I wonder why George W. Bush didn’t try to destroy the poppy fields. There’s an interesting question.

Correction: that should be “I’m not sure that opiate-related deaths *in the under 16s* are the right figurs to look at”. I’d better cal it a day and do something more relaxing, even sleep. Good Night everyone.

@Abe Rene

Isn’t ‘legalising’ drugs a simpler solution than destroying crops with pesticides which will inevitably come with its own human cost? Agent Orange anybody?

Legalising will come with a cost, much of it bureaucratic but isn’t that preferable to generating more wars over land and sovereignty; wouldn’t creating jobs and developing communities be easier and simpler than bombing or spraying them with nasty chemicals?

The whole situation is a win win, many people are able to seek help with their addictions, many more don’t contract awful diseases they inevitably die of, many more don’t get on it in the first place because they don’t come under the influence of a dealer who does the hard sell on them, prostitution will likely be reduced as the cycle required to maintain their habit will be broken, street violence and gang culture will gradually dwindle without the big money in drugs etc.

We can’t avoid drugs in whatever form they come, opiates, tobacco, alcohol, even tea and coffee, the best we can do is manage their distribution and use which is what our governments are clearly failing to do. The problem is, the problem’s growing.

@Abe Rene, clark

Do your figures detail what the circumstances surrounding the death was? Was this a first time user, was it a badly cut deal? was he/she murdered because of drugs as that is classed as a drugs related death.

Simply looking at the figures is a pointless exercise, it’s frequently why bad political decisions are reached affecting all our lives. Examining the figures on road deaths without looking at the causes has led to some unbelievably stupid decisions on road safety mostly directed at drivers when it’s invariably schoolkids reckless behaviour outside schools that’s the problem. But drivers are easier to target because they posess a licence which can be taken away from them. What do you do with stupid, ill disciplined schoolkids? There is nothing to take from them which will stop them jumping out in front of cars, or indeed, being pushed by their best mate as a joke.

Figures are fine but they have to be used in context and rarely can they be used reliably in a human context without understanding the contributing circumstances.

@Suhayl

Whit aboot the Broons!

Redders

Decriminalisation has, as you say, the big advantage of preventing the rise of drug-related crime. For that reason I am for ‘Dutch’ solutions like permitting the use of drugs under medical supervision. On the other hand, Steve seems to have indicated that society (and hospital wards) get filled with junkies that way, and the Dutch are moving towards a tougher policy.

So doing away with the supplies is part of the solution. See, even the Taliban get it right sometimes (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3408353.stm). Of course we would need different methods. So destroy the poppy fields!

PS. I enjoyed Oor Wullie as I grew up, but I never took to the Broons for some reason. I will always remember the immortal verse

“A glass of milk – a can of tea-

then orangeade – and it’s all free!”

To those who don’t understand what that could mean – it won’t make sense unless you’ve experienced reading Oor Wullie, Oh poor deprived person.

Redders,

no, I don’t know much about the figures. I had a quick look, but mostly the figures are not tabulated by age range. But I was quite surprised to find just one drug-related death for under-15s. The mainstream media and conventional wisdom make a big point about drugs and children, so I’d assumed it was a big problem. Looking it up put it in perspective.

My point about traffic isn’t to do with who causes the accident, but that it wouldn’t be right to use extreme measures to eliminate risk. Your contribution emphasises this even further: childish behaviour leads to road deaths and injuries. So we could drug our children with something to make them behave more sensibly, or we could curtail their freedom so that they’re never allowed near traffic, or we could ban all non essential traffic or journeys. Two of these are less extreme that Abe Rene’s proposal. The more extreme one, about drugging children, already seems to be being implemented in the case of ADHD!

Due to years of mainstream hype good sense goes out of the window when drugs are mentioned, to the point that the last government sacked their scientific advisor on drugs because what he said didn’t fit the mainstream opinion. Damn the papers and their sensationalism; they make every problem more difficult to solve, and damn those politicians that respond to the press instead of demanding sense from it.

I have just come off of shift and I agree something must be done my cells were filled with roughly this breakdown. Drug users 35%, Drunks 20%, wife beaters (some drunk) 40%. Idiot criminals 5%. But it is more complicated than that because some of the drunks beat their wives as do the drug users and most of the drunks and drugs users are idiot criminals so it goes around in circles. And to make it more complicated some of the drunk wife beaters are stoned on drugs as well. Legalising the drugs isn’t going to stop the drug users from shoplifting or beating their wives when high off their heads its just going to put them in the same category as the drunk who beats his or her partner whilst pissed.

very few people get arrested for possession alone it is normally as a consequence of them being involved in another offence to pay for the drugs or whilst off their heads. So unless you are advocating giving up to £300 of free drugs away to whoever wants them whenever they want them people will still need to get money to purchase drugs. As most drug users that cause problems are so stoned and wasted to work then legalising drugs would have little net affect on crime or police time.

Contrary to popular believe the real drug dealers are not arrested very often as they tend not to take drugs and drive good cars with insurance tax etc so don’t get caught very often. When they are involved in crime it tends to be big like serious GBH or murder.

The little man who just sells enough to cover his own usage would probably have to turn to crime to subsidise his habit if drugs were legalised which would then have the knock on affect of creating more crime as a side effect. I have seen numerous bottom tier dealers who see it as an ethical way to subsidise their habit. And I cant see boots taking them on to distribute their drugs for them.

The TV portray cops spending hours tracking down the Mr Bigs of this world. In real terms only a tiny resource is used on this by very few people most time is wasted clearing up all the shit from users stoned out off their heads taking meat from Tesco’s or kicking shit out of each other. This is hugely complicated and legalising drugs would do nothing to prevent crime as criminals would just find something else to do. Gun smuggling? Prostitution? Gambling? All these million plus houses and Range Rover Sports have to be paid for somehow

Steve,

I really feel for you, trying to keep a lid on this godawful mess. I know what you mean about the ‘businessmen’ at the top of this food chain; it is disgusting. This is who our intelligence agencies should be going after; I wonder how many of these people are also involved with weapons dealing.

Of course all drug users are legally ‘criminals’, but I personally regard the sort of people I used to associate with as unfairly criminalised. So I hope you’ll bear with me when I describe some ‘criminal drug users’ as a distinct group.

One thing I’ve noticed is that some people are attracted to crime by excitement; this often seems associated with cocaine / stimulants (don’t get me wrong; only some stimulant users are like this). These people get very excited by getting away with something, it doesn’t really matter what.

I once happened to be present when a couple of these concluded a minor fraud. They’d located an empty flat, and ordered some expensive electronics to be delivered there from a catalogue company. They knew roughly when delivery would happen, and were watching for it, so that one of them could go and stand in the doorway with a set of keys and pretend that he was just going out, and sign for the goods. They got away with it up to that point, and I never heard of them getting caught.

So they got away with a £600 electronic device, but I’m convinced that the excitement was the major motivation; they were buzzing, like kids fooling a teacher. I used to say that this sort of people would rather make a fiver illegally than a hundred within the law. Of course they never got rich, but a few do, and I expect that a lot of the ‘Mr Bigs’ start out like this.

Public perception is not blameless here. Every night the airwaves are laden with stories about fictional crime, and decades on, Ronnie Biggs still makes the headlines and is a sort of a public semi-hero. Not my sort of thing; I’m an (ex?) hippy.

Regarding the people overcrowding your cells; society desperately needs some good method of giving these people something better to live for, something that attracts them more than what they already have. As you say, the crime, the drugs, and the aggression and violence all go round in circles, they’re woven together and no single strand can be separated from all the others.

Steve,

some further thoughts. I was really lucky with my introduction to drugs. I met a group of older people, some of whom were experienced drug users, several of them had professional jobs, one was a dispenser studying to become a pharmacist and one even worked for the police. They knew a lot about drugs, the toxicology, addictiveness and the social dangers. They spoke from experience and made a lot more sense than the mainstream, that shouted “All Drugs Are Deadly” in their news columns, and “Become An Adult – Buy Fags and Booze” in their advertisements. My ‘drugs initiation’ was much like that of someone in a tribal society, guided through by the elders of the tribe. They directed me to enlightened literature, arts and music. Drugs were associated with creativity rather than crime in this group.

Things are far more likely to go wrong with a group of teenagers and no older, more experienced users. And this forms part of my argument against prohibition. Those older users opened themselves to risk by educating younger people like me. The stronger the prohibition the more they would have to loose. Indeed, the dispenser never became a pharmacist because he was busted for cannabis. I’m very grateful to these people. What I learned from them has safeguarded me from the dangers of drugs for my whole life.

Clark

Very interesting and thoughtful post. But you were lucky you dont get kind benefactor drugs mentors in sink estates and Government sponsored ones by way of trendy hippy drugs refferal workers will be pretty busy if they have to mentor all the drugs users that would come out if it were legalised. Drugs ruin lives and communities as does drink we cant ban drink only manage it. lets not open up drugs for all so everyone can be exposed. Most people are put off drugs because they are illegal full stop. Not because they fear harm or worry about what they are taking. Take away the fear of coviction and watch pandoras box open. Look what happened when these idiots liberalised the drinking laws.

Steve,

I’m sorry, but I disagree on several points.

We shouldn’t have ‘sink’ estates; we shouldn’t *need* sink estates; the concept itself implies the almost deliberate creation of a problem by councils’ housing policies. But there are decent, quiet users in these places. Probably the police don’t notice them much because they don’t cause trouble. I’ve met them, I probably was one at one time, passing on what I had learned to those who seemed to need to know. It’s an unquantifiable thing, hidden by the secrecy imposed by prohibition; no one knows what the drugs scene would be like without sensible users. But my feeling is that the proportion has fallen over the years, drug supply has become more commercial and competitive. But maybe I only feel that because I live elsewhere now.

Illegality does not simply put people off drug use. Rather, it polarises the issue. Many youngsters start taking drugs partly to advertise their rebellion, the illegality actually draws them to drugs. Conversely, the people who are put off are the sort who would be more likely to use sensibly.

Ruined communities and drug use certainly occur together, but I wouldn’t assume that drug use causes ruined communities. Drugs are partly a cause and partly an effect. Again, disentangling these is extremely difficult, but it is worth looking at external factors. For instance, if a major local employer shuts down, does drug related trouble rise or not?

I don’t know much about the new licensing laws. Last time I went into town on a Friday night, it looked pretty messy. I saw one bit of minor trouble, nothing much, but I wasn’t tempted to go back. I believe France, for instance, has less trouble with drink but more liberal laws. I think something was done wrong here. At a guess, I’d say that larger (ie more commercial) venues get more trouble, and that security firms are no substitute for a good landlord that knows his regulars. And synchronised chucking out times create a flashpoint.

I barely drink, but I’d hate to see it banned. A pint on a summer afternoon by a village cricket match is just one of many drug related pleasures.

Sorry Clerk

But I agree with you but disagree. We dont live in a eutopian world where sink estates dont exist or where everyone has a kindly mentor leading us through lifes wonders. And we never will even if we legalised drugs and gave them away to all and legalised prostitution. And while we are at it lets legalise burglary and shoplifting and have communal cars. This wouldnt be eutopia it would be anarchy. Yes we must strive for eutopia but we must also temper that with reality. Maybe we have to have anarchy before eutopia? It has happened in the past. But only a brave man or a revolution would make it happen. So many people say you only see the bad side of life so you get a distorted view. I could counter that by saying most people only see the good side so they are blinkered. Every coin has two sides.

Steve,

relaxation in the drug laws would have to be phased in, along with other measures, such as sorting out our bewildering array of age restrictions, equalising the employment situation so that you don’t have these places with massive unemployment, putting responsibility for people’s lives back in their own hands, encouraging true community and cutting back the power of corporatism, reestablishing the links between community and the police, establishing lifelong education as a norm, and having a representative media. I could go on and on, all of these things are entangled and affect all others.

The mess we’re in has crept upon us gradually and it can’t be put right at a stroke. Each reform would open a floodgate, so it has to be done piecemeal. Drugs are the clearest example of this. Many people have no experience to use drugs responsibly or how to advise the people around them, and if you just abolished all the laws tomorrow there would be a disaster. Decades of moving people’s personal responsibilities onto the state has created a situation where when people are let down by the system (and millions are), some of them reject the whole lot but have inadequate personal morals to fall back on.

What is clear from the state of your cells is that something in the current system doesn’t work, it’s not even close, and I think we need to look at politics: personal, local, national and international. Yes, we need brave people at all levels, but the current system favours mediocrity; decision makers are so scared of being blamed for getting something wrong that they never take an action that could put something right.

@Steve

Depressingly, you have some very good points however, most of the scum bags you lock up week in, week out will never change, whether its drugs, booze, glue or whatever they will next find, most of them are congenitally stupid.

The current system of drugs control is not only failing people in this country its failing the rest of the world. Prohibition causes untold criminal activity from its source to the end user as well as disease. If nothing else happened other than production in Afghanistan was controlled and managed it would at least mean we didn’t have friends, colleagues and family going out there getting blown up by IED’s. The billions of pounds we are committing to the war could be far better used back in our economy paying off the debt from screw up nulabour.

If it didn’t eliminate the blacked out pimpmobiles altogether it would surely reduce them; if they did find new criminal franchises like gun running at least they can’t hide £1,000 Kalasnikov up their arse or ensure their prostitutes weren’t wholly dependent on them for their next fix, they could tell the pimp to eff off and toddle down to Boots for a hit.

The scum bags languishing in your cells are exactly the same ones I was locking up 35 years ago. Their wives and kids are no different and despite all the money we have pumped into the social work departments, education, self help, back to work schemes etc. they are still an effing plague on society. And its the same the world over.

Interesting dynamic of characters here guys

Perhaps someone will develop collapsible Kalashnikovs.

Steve,

Redders,

I’ve found this conversation with a couple of coppers very refreshing. Daft laws draw a false line between people who are morally on the same side.

Unfortunately, scumbags do tend to remain scumbags. But their ranks swell or dwindle over time according to the health of society itself. Generations replace generations, so it’s the trend that needs to be influenced.

Redders, you write of the money put into various social schemes, and their lack of success. I agree. These measures are too institutionalised, they will always be regarded (with some justification) as an imposition by the people that they are intended to help. The division is the problem; all these schemes come down to ‘professionals’ working with socially separate and relatively disadvantaged ‘clients’, who then feel lectured and ask “what do you know about surviving in these conditions?”. Your suggestion about religious communities is good, though religion is on the decline.

I’m going to be bold and suggest that drugs can actually be part of the solution. Pubs were always a social center, a place where people were united across the social divisions by their common desire for intoxication. It’s a very human thing; people use alcohol to lower their barriers and encourage sociality and communication. That has broken down somewhat in recent times as intoxicants have diversified; globalisation if you like. Holland’s policies have increased some drugs problems, but its coffee shops are a success. People meet for a drink and a smoke and a chat, and barriers are broken down as different types meet each other.

In a globalised world people shouldn’t be isolated by prohibition according to which drugs they prefer.

@Suhayl

Too bad if one of them went off whilst in place. OUCH!

Talking of which did you hear about the guy who wanted to photograph his son whilst holding his (Dad’s) Beretta 9mm to his (Son’s) temple. Yep, predictably the gun was loaded, safety was off and the Son shot himself; what’s worse is the Dad ran off!

The Son wasn’t fatally wounded but Dad was jailed for his ……..well, stupidity really.

Truly Darwinian.

@Clark

“I’ve found this conversation with a couple of coppers very refreshing. Daft laws draw a false line between people who are morally on the same side.”

Don’t forget, I’m an ex copper who left 23 years ago but your sentiments are entirely correct about false divisions. The majority of the general public would, I suspect, agree that something has to be done but of course, the devil in in the detail. Inertia prevails because no one wants to risk political suicide by implementing radical change but radical change is what we need.

As far as the social aspect is concerned I’m rather with Steve from that perspective. I’m not inclined to encourage another form of substance abuse to become commonplace, I would still actively discourage drug use especially amongst our youth despite them perhaps not being as involved as we are commonly led to believe. My idea of drug ‘legalisation’ is more centred around existing users and their distributors, breaking the cycle if you like by rendering the pushers obsolete.

Cannabis use is a difficult one because its so commonplace and almost accepted in many social circles. There can be little doubt it has a debilitating effect if used to excess, but what doesn’t?

@Clark

Sorry, meant to mention this bit. Religion is on the decline because of inactivity. Religion was successful because it was seen to have a function in society, now it doesn’t. Why not give it a function that represents a move away from purely religious activities into a more social role with its religious principles as the foundation. It would, in fact, be a better reflection of what Religion represented to us all in the past.

As a cop we used to have a lot to do with Catholic Priests as they could often deal with recalcitrant children better than the system could. March them up to the Cop Shop and they were arrogant little buggers, march them up to the Priest and they were, almost to a child, blubbering wrecks by the time you got to the Church. And I’m not talking 6 year olds here, 16 and 18 year olds were frequently as distraught at the prospect.

I wonder if it happens now. Steve?

Redders,

socially healthy youths shouldn’t have time to use excessively, life should be sweeping them along. I’m against prohibition party because I think it actually encourages use as an act of rebellion; if your dad or his mates do it, it isn’t so cool. It also makes little groups hide away, and that is where excessive use and false divisions usually develop.

I haven’t mentioned refining and increased potency. These are generally a bad thing, and I don’t have clear ideas on this. I’d rather opium was used than morphine or smack, for instance, but prohibition works its evils for users of refined stuff and raw stuff alike. Maybe if drugs in their natural forms were more available less users would choose the concentrates. Certainly concentration is a benefit only for the criminal traffickers. But highly concentrated alcohol has traditionally been available, even though it’s seriously bad for the few that get hooked. Dilemma. Stronger regulation on concentrates? Only for over 25s?

What has happened to religion is tragic but inevitable. It’s another victim of globalisation. It had two major components; morality, and dogma. The dogmas of various religions were incompatible to varying extents, the moralities mostly compatible. Globalisation has brought the dogmas into contradiction of each other, and morality has suffered by association.

Then there’s the whole social dimension that society has found too expensive to replace. People who would have confided in their religious elders are now turning to the healthcare system and finding councellors in very short supply. Ironically they are encouraged to become (prescription) drug users! The human resource is still there, but a key needs to be found to motivate and integrate it.

@Clark

Nobody said it would be easy

The whole subject is an unexplored conundrum, if drugs were to be legalised then surely legalising for some and not others just replicates the problem with different dynamics and therefore different outcomes. Would we be subject to different types of illegal activity, perhaps like cigarette smuggling?

I think if it were possible then drug use, much like alcohol use, would have to be restricted by age, not that it stops underage drinkers but at least early abuse is identifiable. And when you think about it, your observations on the 15 year old death might suggest that drugs are really only commonly available as one gets a little older, pub age for example and if you’re working, it’s the time you can best afford them. So unlike smoking which is really a childhood addiction, perhaps drugs are a late teenage problem.

The religious question is interesting as the dogma was the part I was keen to avoid which is why I suggest unconditional assistance. No compulsion to attend church, no preaching or converting people whilst they are ‘patients’ or ‘clients’. I started thinking about it when my daughter went to a drama group run by a Christian organisation and I was expecting her to come back with stories of conversion, prayer or indoctrination sessions at which point I would have pulled her out but it never happened. These guys run this group unconditionally, it’s a safe, friendly environment for the kids and they have a great time, we haven’t had a flyer even suggesting they’re a religious group and many other ethnic and religions attend. It has had a positive effect on me, which is unusual as I’m an eternal cynic, and I’m pretty sure my daughter would be happy talking to them about a problem if she couldn’t talk to her Mum and I (which she always can). That to me is a good Church, genuine faith without the dogma.

Clark Redders

I agree with both of you entirely it isnt working at all the system is broken. Society is broken. Yes the total collapse of religion hasnt helped in some areas. Christianity has all but disapeared. It was the moral compass that the majority blindly used to stumble through the fog without falling over too many cliffs. But that has gone. Even our muslim youths who used to be so polite and devout are straying into drugs and robberies. They are now second or third generation whos fathers and mothers worked so hard to give them a good life. Now the kids are rebelling driving expensive cars bought with mums and dads sweat bullying and using their newly gained maturity and size to threaten their parents who are now broken and frail. I have lost count of how many I have come into contact with high on drugs robbing someone for kicks of a crap mobile phone then throwing it away because it is nothing compared to the top of the range one in there pocket bought with cash virtually stolen from parents. Drug use is widespread amongst this group trying to cope with the conflicts of going to the mosque daily and praying with all the pressure of radicalisation and trying to make sense of all the world talking about terrorism and atrosities done on all sides. And fitting in with the wider community not understanding why their parents wont speak to them because the girl at school they are going out is from the wrong race religion cast or social status. But despite still having this supposed moral compass the mixed directions they are being sent in often put them over the cliff. This can be the same for christian kids from devout black families. The street life they live bares no relation to the Sunday school image they see at church and they live two seperate lives. White kids all too often dont even know what religion is as christianity in many white communities has become irrelevant. How many times have you seen the tragic conflicting photos of the poor victim of street knife crime who was stabbed and a picture of them 5 years ago dressed as the local choirboy just for pictures from facebook to come out with him holding a pistol or knife wearing gang colours with his homeys.It is unfortunately inevitable that religion has gone now the hubble spacecraft can see all the way to where we though heaven was hiding. The hierachy of religion, family, community and state are all now broken. Schools dont instill discipline anymore but teach individual choice. Police and Courts say they are victims and deserve 20 or 30 chances at intervention before any punishment is considered. The father figure going out each day early to work and coming home sweaty and tired at night then getting rewarded at the end of the week with money wages has been replaced with mum sitting at home pissed or stoned with an endless stream of uncles and benefits streaming through the door for no return. Given all this no wonder our counrty is fucked

Redders,

drama! It’s a positive influence, religious practices make use of it, and it is comparable to religion in terms of emotional power. It’s an exceedingly positive activity. Commercialism is again a bad influence, hijacking drama from something people are involved with to a passive activity, especially as regards TV. Yes, lets encourage drama and the creative arts generally. This is what I loved about the Stonehenge Free Festival. Everything there was self-motivated, done because the contributors wanted to do it.

Steve,

where to start? I think it’s a fair guess that you’re policing a particularly troubled area. I’ll read your post a few times and hope I come up with something sensible. I bet you get flak from all sides. Some initiative has to be found which encourages cohesion, and that’s not the role of the Police, who are already too busy dealing with the mess. I can’t do much but wish you well.

@Steve

Wow!

It’s not all that bad, there are certain sections of the community of which that is a fair reflection but your working with them for those reasons. I have also seen the dark side, peered over the abyss and truly, its not all black although it seriously does seem like that from where you are. Ask Suhayl what Easterhouse is like, Blackhill, Possil Park, Drumchapel and many more places I worked that were sink estates before the term was invented. All those attitudes displayed by your Muslim youths was commonplace in Glasgow of the 70′s and 80′s but it was white trash without even the dichotomy of a Church to make them question their behaviour. There was no redemption possible for them, the opportunity of seeing the light in their faith simply didn’t exist, at least your Muslim lads have that chance.

What really made me think one day was when I was walking the beat (Strange I know, but we did that a lot, and if you pissed off the Sgt. or Insp. you did it on your own, a lot!) and within 100 Yards went from one of the most deprived areas, tenement buildings, postage stamp piece of grass, knackered old cars etc. where we inevitably spent most of our time, to an area where there were 1930′s council semi detached houses, rows of them, painted by the tenants with neat gardens front and back, drives with modest but newish cars in them etc. and I had to do a double take to convince myself how close I was to Hell. We normally drove through this area at 60MPH responding to another call in the cauldron so we never noticed it existed. Then I started to question what areas in the tenements I actually visited regularly and of course it was always the same ones; when I was with one of my more community minded colleagues we used to drop in on his acquaintances who existed cheek by jowel with the scum bags, perfectly respectable people with jobs, ambitions, well cared for and educated children, clean homes and self respect. The more I thought and looked, the more of these doormouse people I saw. Like a voyeur I began to pay more attention at 8am when the kids were sent to school and the Dad’s went to work and I began to realise that there were lots of the doormouse people, lots more in fact than there were scum bags but they were normal, and we never saw them because early shift was frequently spent serving warrants on the scum bags who were on the run and we knew didn’t get out of bed before lunchtime.

There is hope, there are more good people than bad, you just sometimes have to look for them because unlike you, me and the scum bags they are respectful and fearful of the law so are inclined to keep their heads down. I was as cynical as you were early in my job as a copper but as I developed I began to realise I was often under the influence of my circumstances and the environment I was forced to work in. When I left I actually quite liked the job but only because I lightened up and began to associate, wherever possible, with the nicer elements of the public, they made the job worthwhile it was the bosses that did it for me. We were told by an Inspector to walk the beat on night shift, all of us, on our own and to nick anything that moved for at least a breach of the peace. Big gob me asked him about corroboration and he told me I was to radio him and he would provide whatever corroboration I needed at which point I told HIM to nick them then and I’ll provide his corroboration which he knew would be none as I wasn’t about to risk a good job for the sake of his crime figures. The bastard tried to stitch me up later when he put me with a guy that didn’t particularly like me in a car and, predictably, we got involved in a car chase, I ran into the back of the car as it stopped (just a ding on the bonnet) and he tried to persuade my partner to say I had been driving recklessly and that he would make it worth his while to drop me in it. Thankfully the guy had more dignity than to deal with the shit, refused and in sight of him, came over and told me what he had said.

The scum bags come from unexpected places, but then so do the honest people.

Our system may be busted but I’m hoping this government, with the financial challenge it faces wont tolerate the waste associated with nicking, releasing and nicking again, the same suspects 20 or 30 times. My desire of our religious communities developed from my belief that prison and rehabilitation cannot exist concurrently. We can’t go on kicking people out of prison straight back into the environment the trouble started in. Rehabilitation needs to start at the prison gates but on the way out not on the way in. We need to separate punishment and rehabilitation, you discipline a child by sending him/her to their room then after the punishments over and everyone’s calmed down you start to repair the damage done to your relationship. But the government would say “we can’t afford that, we don’t have enough social workers to cope”……so use the effing churches! not to dispense dogma but to help with adjustment to living outside the nick, provide a gentler nick to let them convert to ‘normal’ life.

“Passive activity” tut tut, contradiction in terms.

@Clark

Huh?

I was commenting on my own mistake; your great post came in meantime.

Timings me @ 3:02, you @ 3:02, me @ 3:04

Yes, Coppers must get a concentrated view of crime, it must look dreadful sometimes. I knew an A&E nurse, she saw all the stab victims and wouldn’t go out at night. I never saw any trouble as bad as knives in that area and never felt scared on the streets at night.

It’s the same with the drugs. The cops see all the troublemakers, there are vast numbers of ordinary people that also happen to be drug users but keep quiet because it’s illegal, and a fair few great people who use, too.

Redders,

respect to you and your partner for telling that Inspector where to get off. I wonder what that Inspector would have got up to if he hadn’t ended up in the Police? It doesn’t seem he had a very honest approach to things.

@Clark

My wife was an A & E Nurse in Glasgow, she treated a guy who’s hand had been cut with a meat cleaver except it wasn’t just once, they had held him down and chopped it all the way up to the wrist. She said his hand was like a bag of bolts. He never reported it to the Police, he just went after the guys who did it and they appeared in the same department over the following months with a variety of horrendous injuries.

We cops thought we had seen it all but we really had no idea.

@Clark

That Inspector was a scumbag himself, I found out that a few years after I left he was busted to Sgt. after being found drunk on duty.

The problem is these guys didn’t get paid huge amounts compared to what they could earn in business so they satisfied their overblown ego’s by flexing their petty powers and bullying anyone they felt they could. They were, again, the exception but I usually ended up with them because I was a bolshy shit and they kept trying to give me the worst jobs to piss me off.

Redders,

“didn’t get paid huge amounts compared to what they could earn in business”

Business. How many times do we hear it? The people who do the most for society get paid the least, and commercial concerns rake it in, the profits going to the top and the shareholders, not the essential staff. Then they make off with the pensions. Our ‘elected representatives’ make decisions that benefit Big Money; meanwhile, society goes to hell and the soldiers to Afghanistan.

And what do we get from it? 100 hours plus of telly per evening of crime, trivia, propaganda and advertisement, consumer goods that break two minutes after the guarantee expires, a house you might actually own if you live long enough, lots of flashy shop fronts just to rub in the fact that they have the money and we don’t.

Can’t imagine why there’s a load of drugs and crime.

RENTON: Swanney taught us to adore and respect the National Health Service, for it was the source of much of our gear. We stole drugs, we stole prescriptions, or bought them, sold them, swapped them, forged them, photocopied them or traded them with cancer victims, alcoholics, old age pensioners, AIDS patients, epileptics and bored housewives. We took morphine, diamorphine, cyclozine, codeine, temazepam, nitrezepam, phenobarbitone, sodium amytal dextropropoxyphene, methadone, nalbuphine, pethidine, pentazocine, buprenorphine, dextromoramide chlormethiazole. The streets are awash with drugs that you can have for unhappiness and pain, and we took them all. Fuck it, we would have injected Vitamin C if only they’d made it illegal.