CAN LEGALISING HEROIN REALLY HELP THE FIGHT AGAINST
CRIME?

THE link between drugs and crime is much documented, but former
chief constable Tom Lloyd has today spoken in support of legalising
heroin to cut out the dealers. MARIA THOMPSON judges the reaction.

A FORMER chief constable has come under fire after calls for heroin
to be prescribed on the NHS.

The one-time head of Cambridgeshire police, Tom Lloyd, told The
Evening Telegraph he thought the answer to winning the war on drugs
was to cut out dealers and offer heroin to users.

But Mr Lloyd has found very little support for his comments, which
have met with fierce criticism from both drugs workers and the
city's MP Stewart Jackson.

Mr Lloyd said: "I believe that prescribing heroin to addicts will
reduce crime driven by the need to buy drugs, stabilise individual
users and make it easier to help them and, importantly, take away
the profits from dealers and so drive them out of business."

Mr Lloyd was unclear as to why he had chosen to make his thoughts
known at this time, but said he hoped to spark both local and
national debate on an issue that lies at the centre of crime and
community safety.

And he added: "If you start talking about anything other than
locking up users, you tend to get criticised for being soft on
drugs. But anyone who looks at the growing problem of drugs has got
to turn this argument on its head and say the current system is indefensible.

"During my police service, I became convinced that this country's
approach to attempting to control illegal drug abuse was deeply
flawed and unsuccessful.

"I learned from personal experience that enforcement is either
ineffective or actively counter-productive and policy-related harms
are now far greater than harms caused by drug misuse.

"The whole of the drug problem is a massive problem, and I'm
focusing on heroin because I think it causes a huge amount of harm."

But Peterborough MP Stewart Jackson, however, has dismissed the
former top cop's views.

He said he felt strongly about the issue and opposed Mr Lloyd's
comments, saying it would be like giving cars to car thieves.

"I think it's a ridiculous idea," he said.

"It sends out a message to law-abiding people that the police have
given up on the battle against drugs, when there is no evidence that
it would work. It is not an idea I would adhere to. You would not
give cars to car thieves."

"Giving free drugs to drug addicts would be a disastrous social policy."

Detective inspector Fran Jones, manager of the Peterborough drugs
intervention program, once worked with Mr Lloyd.

Although she does not disagree with his comments, she said she
thought tackling drug abuse needed to be more holistic than just
prescribing heroin to addicts.

"I'm not challenging his views,"she said. "It has a validity. But
our program is more holistic.

"I support the view about taking the profit out of the trade,
clearly that's a motivator for the police, but we would argue we are
doing that with our prescription policy.

"The advantage would be that you would know you would be perscribing
a clean product, but it would be a nightmare to administer.

"Users can need two or three hits a day and you would have to do it,
otherwise they might go and sell it on."

DI Jones said she thought there was probably an element of headline
grabbing in what Mr Lloyd was saying and that he was maybe unaware
of the work now being done through the city's drugs intervention program.

In Peterborough, anyone who is arrested for what they call an
"acquisitive" crime aE" one in which a person has stolen something
for profit aE" he or she is automatically drugs tested.

If the test is positive, they will be encouraged to get on a drug program.

She said: "Where Mr Lloyd is naive, is that in order to change views
on drugs, you have to move them away from the culture, which could
mean moving them away from peer groups in which drug taking has
become the norm.

"They have to feel like meaningful people in society and feel they
have positive things to offer society aE" it's a complex problem."

DI Jones has a lot of experience in dealing with addicts and knows
only to well the devastating affect heroin has on people's lives.

Unlike cocaine, the body becomes addicted and can become so from the
first hit.

She agreed it was a problem that needed to be addressed, but didn't
think prescribing heroin would change anything, as methadone was
already being used successfully to wean addicts off it.

She added: "The issue I would have with prescribing is the kind of
people who need it are not great people. They don't make a
contribution to society and their mind set is on nothing else other
than where they are going to get their next hit."

Bridgegate is a registered charity in Peterborough for drug users,
any family of users and people concerned about drug use.

The charity is also responsible for helping children as young as 11
who may have been exposed to heroin.

Currently the charity offers a range of different treatments for
heroin users including detox programmes for young people.

The charity says one of the main ways a child or young person ends
up taking heroin is by being exposed to it by a family member or friend.

Lisa Mellon from Bridgegate said: "The really good news is we have
very small numbers of users (under the age of 18) in Peterborough,
that's the really positive thing to say.

"As far as young people are concerned the age range is very much at
the top end and it tends to be teenagers.

"Prescribing heroin to young people would be out of the question."

Teenage heroin users are treated differently to older addicts,
because they are not the same as long term users and therefore tend
to be treated through a process of detoxification.

For more information about services at Bridgegate call 01733 314551
or Freephone 0800 2792978.

This is not the first time there has been a public debate on
prescribing heroin to addicts.

Earlier this year the deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire
police, Howard Roberts, was heavily criticised by fellow officers
and politicians alike when he said it.

Mr Robert's views were his own and not representative of the force.

He made them following the Association of Chief Police Officers
conference in Manchester on November 23 and carried on the debate in
the public arena.

Mr Lloyd does not claim to have the answer to tackling the illegal
drug trade, but hopes by making these views public to continue a
debate that may eventually result in finding a more effective
solution to the one we have now.

A long and varied career in the force

Married

with four children, he was educated at New College, Oxford
University, where he read philosophy and psychology from 1971 to 1974.

The year he graduated he joined the Metropolitan Police and spent
his early career at Marylebone and West End Central police stations,
in London.

His time at the Met saw him in a number of uniform and specialist roles.

From 1992 to 1996 he was chief superintendent in Central London and
in 1996 was promoted to commander.

As director of strategic co-ordination he was responsible for
corporate, strategic and annual planning, liaison with the Home
Office and the development of information management.

In January 2000 he transferred to Cambridgeshire police as deputy
chief constable and was responsible for all operational policing in
the county.

He was awarded a Queen's Police Medal in the 1999 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Tom Lloyd became chief constable in 2004, shortly before the Holly
Wells and Jessica Chapman case, and quit in May 2005.

The father-of-four took the decision to quit his UKP120,000 a year
job after a national newspaper report made claims about his behaviour
at a national police conference.

He is now retired.