TRANSCRIPT - PANORAMA "COPS ON DRUGS"

PETER MARSHALL This week the government will announce new measures in its
war on drugs. But some police have already concluded the war can't be won.

FRANCIS WILKINSON Just tackling it head on with the Police and Customs will
not work.

PETER MARSHALL A new study reveals what the police really think about the
drug laws. Tonight on Panorama, Cops on Drugs. The idea that the police
might pursue somebody for having coffee is clearly a joke. But there's a
serious point here. A unique study of police attitudes to drugs suggests
if you were to ask the average British officer which was the more
addictive, cannabis or coffee, he'd tell you coffee, the legal hit. Police
attitudes are changing with major implications for the government's war on
drugs.

TONY BLAIR, MP [Breakfast with Frost] I think people are petrified about
drugs. I'm petrified about drugs in respect of my own children and other
people's children, and I will be saying in the Queen's Speech there will be
a Crime and Justice Bill, and drugs will be the main focus of it, and we
will be without giving all the details now, we will be looking at some of
the key issues that we've just ducked - all government's - for far too long
in this area.

PETER MARSHALL The Government may be making drugs a priority but it's the
police and how they operate which determines the success of the drug laws.
They decide whether an offender is charged or let off with a caution,
crucially avoiding a criminal record. Now, a Dutch academic has spent
three years investigating how British Police attitudes affect the way they
enforce the law.

HENDRIEN KAAL AUTHOR 'THE POLICE AND DRUG OFFENDERS' I don't think the
police are petrified. The police deal with drugs on a daily basis. They
have to be pragmatic. After all, they're the gatekeepers of the criminal
justice system. They decide whether people enter the criminal justice
system or not, whether people end up with a criminal record or not.

PETER MARSHALL She was given unprecedented access to police from three
different forces, recording their views on the dangers of different drugs.
She presented them with a range of hypothetical drugs cases. These we
dramatised with actors expressing the officers' reactions. The first case
involved cannabis, the most widely used elicit drug.

POLICE (ACTOR 1) In my experience, cannabis is one of the most used drugs
around, or should I say misused. The majority of people I've come across
recently aren't criminal types at all. They're just students, young people
using it recreationally two or three times a week.

MARSHALL In this scenario the police go to a house where the owner is
growing four cannabis plants. There is also some additional marijuana.
Most of the police surveyed felt this was a run of the mill sort of case
and certainly not a major crime.

POLICE (ACTOR 2) Cannabis isn't a very hard drug. There is the question of
it being addicted, but then so is smoking and drinking.

MARSHALL The accused man, who has a number of previous convictions but none
for drugs, and no cautions, says he knows cannabis is illegal, but he
doesn't think it's morally wrong to have it. What's more, he suffers from
a bad back and would rather use what he grows than take pain killers. Some
officers are sympathetic.

POLICE (ACTOR 3) I'm aware of the arguments of legalising, and there are
strong arguments for medicinal use. But the law is quite specific. It's a
criminal offence. If it was true and he was suffering and had a genuine
reason for medicinal purposes, then I personally would have no objection.

MARSHALL Predictably the accused man believes cannabis should be
decriminalised, particularly since so many people use it anyway. As for
the police, they are divided.

POLICE (ACTOR 4) I believe the problem is with weak minded individuals
because cannabis can go on to lead to further addiction. There's a lot of
people who can control it but we have to protect the weaker people. I
don't think we should decriminalise it.

POLICE (ACTOR 5) I can't see it happening due to government policies, but
if it was decriminalised, personally I wouldn't have any argument with
that. One of the reasons is that it might keep some people out of the
illegal drug culture. As I said, a large number of people use it and in my
opinion, it's not a very major offence in the eyes of the police.

MARSHALL Whatever their personal views of the current cannabis law, nearly
two thirds of the officers surveyed said they would not prosecute in this
case. Only 11% said the definitely would prosecute, all of which reflects
the overwhelming opinion nine out of ten of them felt that as drugs cases
go, this one wasn't very serious. Indeed, asked to rate substances for
addictiveness, the police survey put crack as the most addictive closely
followed by heroine. Cocaine, tobacco and alcohol came next with even
coffee ahead of cannabis which is at the very bottom. On potential harm,
cannabis is just ahead of coffee but still scores far lower than alcohol
and tobacco. Way back when, in the 1960s the police began their struggle
with the drug culture. Even in the early days some were making choices,
which drug offenders should be prosecuted and which should not. At the
time, the busiest drug squad, London's, was deliberately targeting pop
stars, but behind the scenes officers questioned the policy.

EDDIE ELLISON FORMER HEAD OF THE DRUG SQUAD, SCOTLAND YARD There was a
period on the Squad when we actually discussed whether or not that was a
proper tactic and whether it was a tactic that was producing the right
results which is deterrence, and we came to the conclusion that these high
publicity cases were actually making the use of the drug more attractive.
These people were seen as role models and if they.. we had the Stones
around at the time and if they were getting prosecuted and they thought
this drug was fine, then perhaps we were sending out the signal, by
prosecuting them, to everybody else that this was a glamorous thing to do.
So there was almost a policy decision made amongst the workers within the
Drug Squad that we would not target that sort individual.

MARSHALL Today most police make those choices, whether or not to prosecute
as a matter of course. Like everywhere else, in the Hertfordshire market
town of St Albans the drug laws are broken every day. The way the police
respond echoes the approach found in the survey. Ten years ago they were
allowing only 3% of drug offenders to escape with a caution. By last year
their cautioning rate had risen to some 50%. This apparently softer
approach is balanced by a determination to enforce the law where they feel
it's necessary. These are the enforcers, the St Albans Divisional Support
Unit are planning a raid. There aim is to clamp down on drugs by targeting
dealers - not the millionaire drug barons but low level street dealers.
They are led by Sergeant Mick Seal.

SGT MICK SEAL HERTFORDSHIRE POLICE This is precise information that we're
going there mainly for controlled substances but there is also information
that there may be stolen property which shows the links between crime and
drugs.

PETER MARSHALL It's 6am and the unit are about to make the classic drug
buster ploy, a dawn raid. The arrival of a sniffer dog is supposed to be
the coup de gras, a foolproof drugs detector. They say operations like
this come from intelligence and planning, but then the best laid plans....

What's happened here?

SGT MICK SEAL Well basically we've entered the premises, of which the door
was open, and we found that one gentleman inside. The people we're after
have been living here but moved out in the last few days.

MARSHALL Is there a substantial quantity of drugs in there?

SGT MICK SEAL No, there's not but they will be aware that we are after
them, so hopefully it will frustrate them that way, but it will make them
more wary which will make it more difficult for us. But we'll keep going.
We'll keep going.

MARSHALL Meanwhile, right next to the police station there's a notorious
drug offender the police are ignoring. It's Howard Mark's second
nationwide tour lampooning the drug laws.

HOWARD MARKS (Addressing an audience) For 20 years I was intimately
connected with illegal drug trafficking in the following countries: Eire,
Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland.......

MARSHALL By the time of his arrest in 1988 Hard Marks had become the
world's biggest cannabis dealer. Using umpteen identities he'd sold it by
the shipload before his career was ended by American agents. Now released
from a US prison he's back home entertaining sell out crowds with what once
would have seemed outrageous. He's making a show of smoking dope. In the
war on drugs, Howard Marks is on the side of the drugs.

HOWARD MARKS In many of these countries I worked closely with senior law
enforcement.

(laugher and applause from audience)

MARSHALL He's even been trying to get arrested to expose what he sees as
the law's injustice, although when he did get picked up recently, the
outcome was another sign of how times had changed.

HOWARD MARKS Well the policeman searched me, found the marijuana, then
found out who I was. It was in that order, and seemed almost a little
embarrassed by having it and sort of said, look, we have to go through with
this, you know, because there's a lot of policemen around, and took me to
Hammersmith Police Station, cautioned me, and was extremely efficient about
getting me out of there as soon as possible. We didn't have any discussion
actually about drugs at that time.

MARSHALL You were cautioned not prosecuted?

MARKS Yes. Yes, I was cautioned.

MARSHALL As leader of the Metropolitan Police Drug Squad, Eddie Ellison
spent years on the other side of the drugs divide. He welcomes cautioning
saying it reflects a shift in the public mood.

EDDIE ELLISON FORMER HEAD, MET. POLICE DRUGS SQUAD The police tend to
caution where society is changing its mind, and the police service tends to
be ahead of the politicians. It's happened in the case of street
bookmakers where we then got betting offices. It happened in the offences
of buggery where we got a more supportive approach to homosexuality. We
got it with abortion where abortion was deemed to be a criminal offence but
it was seen that support for the individual was more important than
continuing with back street abortions which is what the legislation brought
out. And even the ridiculous anomaly where the offence of suicide was a
crime, now in all these cases we wouldn't think about turning the clock
back. In every case we'd seen it as a step along the route to a more
supportive, more compassionate society.

MARHSALL For many serving officers, including those in St Albans, this
reliance on cautioning for cannabis feels inevitable given society's ever
more relaxed attitude.

PC STEVE PRICE HERTFORDSHIRE POLICE I should think every other person you
nick says, the first thing they say to you is "It's only a bit of Percy..
it's only a bit of personal cannabis, that's all it's for. Why are you
bothering with this?" And it's the attitude across the whole of the youth
culture, and older people. But it's just that, "Why bother with this?
There's more people going out causing problems drinking and smashing the
place up whereas all we're doing is just sitting around having a smoke."
And that's the first argument they'll have.

MARSHALL What do you think about that?

PC PRICE Well to some extent I think well they're right in some ways. It
can't, as opposed to alcohol which makes you often more aggressive, more
violent, more likely to commit violent crimes, it tends to calm you down...
apparently. (laughter from colleagues) It makes you more relaxed.
Whether the long-term effects or the medical effects are going to cause, as
I say, more long term problems which you don't know.

PC SONYA WORTHINGTON HERTFORDSHIRE POLICE 15 years ago when I was a
teenager, you didn't see drugs on the street etc. Now, drugs to me, or
cannabis to me, is equivalent to going and buying a packet of cigarettes
then, and I'm not saying no drugs wasn't about but it seems a lot more
prolific and easy accessible these days than it was say 15, 20 years ago.

MARSHALL Are you glad that you're cautioning now? I think the rate in the
last 10 years has gone up 16 fold in Hertfordshire.

PC PETER EDWARD HERTFORDSHIRE POLICE If you don't caution people, the
system will be simply swamped because there's so much cannabis and there's
so many people being caught with cannabis, the system would cease to exist
because it would just be completely awash and we would be spending our
entire time doing paper work and not actually going out and catching drug
dealers which is what we are here to do.

MARSHALL But cautioning for cannabis doesn't happen everywhere. While
Hertfordshire tends to caution, in some other parts and with some officers,
as we saw in the survey, a conviction is likely. Across the country around
60% of those found in possession get a caution, but nearly 40% are still
taken through the courts ending with a criminal record. The man who
represents the government strategy on drugs is Keith Hellawell, the drugs
Tsar. A former chief constable himself, he admits cautioning practice may
seem unjust in its inconsistency.

If you're picked up with cannabis you'll probably get a caution but you
might get a criminal record.

KEITH HELLAWELL UK ANTI-DRUGS CO-ORDINATOR I think that's the thing we're
obviously trying to resolve. What we do need to have is consistency across
the criminal justice system. We have issued guidelines to the police
service. Those guidelines, or shall I say inspected or examined in the way
that we try and provide that consistency. But it isn't that easy. There
are different people with different circumstances, and it isn't just as..
it cannot be as objective as one would like it.

MARSHALL The second hypothetical case in the police survey involved heroin,
a hard addictive drug blamed for creating a crime wave. The scenario, a
routine stop and search in which a man is found in possession. He says
it's for his own use. He's an addict.

POLICE (ACTOR 1) I haven't got the same sympathy for heroin users. I think
anybody caught in possession should be charged and publicly flogged. I do
feel strongly that all heroin offences should be prosecuted. Heroin is a
killer.

MARHSALL He's been caught with 0.6 grams of the drug. A measure of police
uncertainty is the fact that the officers had differing views as to whether
this was a lot of a little.

POLICE (ACTOR 1) My immediate thought is it's a very small amount, 0.6
grams is only 6 hits. That's not an unusual amount for a heroin addict.

MARHSALL His colleague thought the reverse which could affect the
seriousness of any prosecution.

POLICE (ACTOR 3) Point 6 grams is not always 'own use' in my experience.
Now I don't think that sixty quid's worth of heroin is a small amount, so
odds on he's giving it to somebody else.

MARSHALL The connection between heroin and crime is a major concern.

POLICE (ACTOR 4) Users invariably become suppliers in order to fund their
habit, or they take up some other sort of crime. It's a circle that we
need to break.

MARSHALL In the case outlined the man has recently been cautioned for
heroin possession. Even so, a minority of officers would consider a second
caution. Others rule it out.

POLICE (ACTOR 5) I mean usually, the way I make decisions, if it was longer
than a year, I'd caution. If it was within the last year, I'd charge.

POLICE (ACTOR 6) He's already been cautioned and you can't go on cautioning
people. Jack Straw has gone on record as saying you can't go on
cautioning. He's already been cautioned so we're stepping up a notch.

MARSHALL So, as with cannabis, there can be differing views among the
police although overall they're far tougher on heroin. Most of the
officers felt this was a serious drugs case, or at least a case involving a
serious drug, and two thirds of them said they would prosecute.

Heroin has long been viewed as a loser's drug, but it's estimated there are
now as many as 200,000 heroin addicts searching for a fix. Their numbers
grew steeply as organised crime created a glut in the market.

EDDIE ELLSION From the 70s through into the early 80s there was a total
change in the culture of drug supply. By the time the 80s came round the
commodities being brought in were heroin and cocaine and it was clearly a
totally criminal element and it's continued to this day. There is so much
profit in the drugs field that the competition is now less between the drug
importer/supplier and the police and customs, it is more between the drug
importer and his competitor in the field. This is where we are having the
murders and the serious crime between the suppliers.

MARSHALL Police and Customs are seizing two and a quarter thousand kilos of
heroin in Britain every year. But multiples of that figure are getting
through undetected. It was heroin which led to the first big effort to
marry law enforcement with education and a health message. The government
is attempting to build on that with its most recent approach to drugs,
trying to get a host of agencies together to cut drugs related crime.

If you depend on it, the chances are you'll end up sharing a needle, and if
it's infected with AIDS, where does that leave you?

MARSHALL The police station in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, is the base
for one of the pilot schemes called 'Referrals'. Everybody arrested and
brought here is invited to see a counsellor, who is not a police officer,
to discuss any problems. In this way drug addicts can be detected and, if
it's available, offered treatment. John has been an addict for 10 years.

JOHN I've gone through a methadone detox which I've stopped now. I'm
getting regularly prescribed diazepam.

COUNSELLOR Have you thought maybe sort of maybe doing some rehabilitation?

JOHN Once you've got a problem like that, you have to want to give it up.
Locking someone away isn't giving them the choice. You know, they're not
the ones making the conscious decision do I want to be doing this or don't
I want to be doing this. Basically you've been caught doing it and you're
locked away. So however long that time may be that you're locked away for,
when you come out, you still haven't made the decision that you want to
stop drugs. It's just that drugs have been taken away from you.

MARSHALL Voluntary counselling is having some success, and the Prime
Minister has hinted he'll be expanding referral schemes to police stations
around the country. But there's a twist. He indicated that addicts won't
get a choice.

TONY BLAIR PRIME MINISTER We will be looking at some of the key issues that
we've just ducked - all governments - for far too long in this area.
Whether there should be mandatory testing of people that are arrested for
criminal offences, whether there should be a presumption against bail for
people who are cocaine and heroin users who we know are just going to go
straight back out on the streets and do more criminal offences.

MARSHALL Back in Hertfordshire, the idea of coercion, making referral
counselling a condition of bail is causing concern.

MONIQUE TOMKINS DRUGLINK I think from my experience as a drug worker,
voluntary treatment options, voluntary attendance for counselling does tend
to work on a better level than coercive, and I think actually it would
quite discredit the scheme. I think that as it currently works at the
moment, people will talk to you on a voluntary basis because they want to
address their own issues.

MARSHALL And the Blair notion of drug testing - another non-starter.

MARSHALL There's an idea being floated by the Prime Minister that perhaps
the police should test everybody for drugs who they arrest, for any
offence, test them for drugs. What do you think about that?

SGT MARK EWAN HERTFORDSHIRE POLICE I think in theory that would be fine but
practically it would be very difficult to cope with it, and the same
applies to DNA testing. We do DNA testing, we can take it for everyone we
charge for a recordable offence. The fact is that at the moment we don't
because we couldn't cope with it.

MARSHALL These objections leave the Prime Minister's apparently tough
stance in some doubt. The Tsar though, is giving nothing away.

KEITH HELLAWELL DRUG TSAR The people who are dealing with people who are
referred by arrest referral or from the courts are saying it's working.
The people themselves who are being referred maybe at one time said 'I
don't want to get involved in this', they're now saying 'thank you'.

MARSHALL But they choose, they choose that treatment. It's not tied to
their bail conditions, it's not.. that's the point, it's their choice.

HELLAWELL Well let's just see in terms of what you are actually talking
about is something that's going to be in the Queen's Speech. We haven't
got the final detail on that so I'm not really in a position to comment on
that at this stage.

MARSHALL So the Prime Minister might be talking tough but he's not actually
going to do what he's suggested he might do.

HELLAWELL I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying we're working through the
detail of those proposals.

MARSHALL The third hypothetical case in the police study reveals their
attitude to ecstasy. An 18 year old is detained by a doorman at a
nightclub. They say he's been selling drugs. The police are called and
find he has 20 ecstasy tablets. The accused is said to be an A-level
student who works part-time for a computer firm.

POLICE (ACTOR 1) I'd like to know more about his background. Obviously
he's very bright. I would want to talk to his family. There was no
mention of father. I wonder if he's attempting to provide for his family.

MARSHALL We're told he has no convictions or cautions and he denies
supplying drugs. But he does say he's given one tablet to a friend. This
leads the police to conclude he's a dealer.

POLICE (ACTOR 2) On the basis of what there is, and as custody sergeant I'd
be looking to charge for possession and intent to supply. There'll be no
caution or anything like that. He's a fledgling dealer just starting out
and probably amongst friends, but that still makes him a dealer.

POLICE (ACTOR 3) My personal view is that people who are supplying are the
scum of the earth. They should be locked up and the key thrown away.
People are daft enough to buy, but you can't buy if there's no supply.
Twenty is not for his own use and I've got no time for dealers. I could go
on and on because I hate drug dealers.

MARSHALL It seems to be the danger of the drug that causes most concern.
Only a small minority felt the risks had been overstated.

POLICE (ACTOR 4) More people die of nut allergy every year. They try to
hype up the dangers of E in order to scare the kids off. But the youth of
today are well informed and they don't frighten easily.

MARSHALL But most of the police took a much sterner view.

POLICE (ACTOR 5) The difficulty with ecstasy is a lot of kids have it. The
problem is, it can kill.

PETER MARSHALL Of all the cases, this one involving ecstasy, a commonplace
recreational drug these days, has the police clearest as to what action
they'd take. Only 10% of them will consider a caution while 80% say they'd
prosecute, what's more, they're adamant the matter of 20 ecstasy tablets is
a serious drugs offence. From the late 80s ecstasy, and its use on the
Rave scene brought illegal drugs to a new generation. At one point between
half and one and a half million people were said to be using ecstasy.

RADIO NEWS HEADLINES Police in Essex have offered an amnesty to youngsters
who bought ecstasy tablets from a contaminated batch which has left a
teenager in a coma. Leah Betts, who collapsed after taking an ecstasy
tablet.....

MARSHALL A number of deaths led to public concern about the dangers. The
case of Leah Betts, a policeman's daughter, had enormous impact which some
say was understandable but disproportionate.

EDDIE ELLISON Compared to the people using it the bad effects of ecstasy
the ones that get all the headlines are very, very minimal. To the people
concerned and to the families concerned they are very, very serious but in
terms statically they are very, very few.

MARSHALL That argument has little support from the police in Hertfordshire.

SGT MICK SEAL HERTFORDSHIRE POLICE I don't think we caution.. very rarely,
for ecstasy at all. It's been a proven fact that ecstasy kills and it's a
lethal drug.

MARSHALL Is it a good idea to prosecute, to criminalise, those kids who are
caught with it? Is it helpful?

SGT SEAL Well you've got to make a stand somewhere. You've got to turn
round and say you can't have this, you're not allowed it. And they're
grown to have it in their hands. They know the law then yes, we should
prosecute them, definitely.

PC TONI NICHOLLS HERTFORDSHIRE POLICE There's another reason in prosecuting
someone, it may have been just enough to stop some of them having it for
the one reason, and the only reason, being that it's illegal to have, and
they may have more fear of the police catching them with it than the fear
of what health implications that may have.

MARSHALL So with ecstasy again a large section of a generation have put
themselves outside the law, prepared to risk a criminal record.

EDDIE ELLISON Certainly in the case of ecstasy these days, we're not only
repeating what happened through the 60s and the 70s with cannabis but, if
anything, we're digging deeper into the disrespect for the law.

MARSHALL James Humphreys is a student in Manchester. Like countless others
he sometimes breaks the law.

JAMES HUMPHREYS Most people that I've met use drugs have a good time and
they carry on having an ordinary life but they carry on using drugs on a
moderate level which is, I think, what many people do, myself included.

MARSHALL But, as a first year student, one night James Humphreys found how
tough the law can be.

JAMES HUMPHREYS Just sitting at home, a normal evening and somebody knocks
on the door and you ask who it is and then they don't tell you so obviously
you don't let them in. We thought it was just.. we thought it was somebody
coming round to rob us or something like that so we actually phoned the
police.

MARSHALL In fact it was the police. There were 50 ecstasy tablets in the
house. He says they were communal for himself and his five friends - but
he owned up. James Humphreys found himself in Strangeways. Like others
caught with ecstasy he was now a criminal, jailed for two and a half years.

JAMES HUMPHREYS It was almost like a deliberate way of ruining somebody's
life. When you're inside a lot of people don't have very much before and
they've got even less when they leave. It almost systematically destroys
their lives.

MARSHALL But the Drug Tsar has no sympathy with those who say they've been
criminalised by the law and suggests they get off lightly.

KEITH HELLAWELL DRUG TSAR The law in this country says that if you're
dealing in class A drugs the maximum sentence you can receive is life
imprisonment, and okay, I mean people say well they were only a few tablets
and they were this that and the other, but you were supplying tablets and
you are breaking a law which has been ascribed because of the dangerous
situation, because the nature and consequences of your actions.

MARHSALL The final drug case in the police study involved a young mother,
caught with cocaine. She and her children have no home, and stay with her
sister.

POLICE (ACTOR 1) Well she's selling the Big Issue, living with her sister,
and looking forward to the future. Great, she's heading in the right
direction. I just hope she's not feeding us a lie.

POLICE (ACTOR 2) I'm worried here, she's got children and she might well be
using drugs. We'd have to leave her with the children. We'd searched her
sister's address and see what we'd found and see the state of the children.
If they're in need of protection then I'd have them removed. If she
doesn't give us information I don't see any problem in taking the children
off her - she doesn't deserve them.

MARSHALL We're told the woman became aggressive in custody. This is felt to
be significant in deciding a possible charge.

POLICE (ACTOR 3) I'm surprised she's so aggressive if she really is
determined to make a fresh start. Maybe she's aggressive because she's on
drugs. Biting and spitting shows a total disregard for authority.
Regardless of the drug offence, I'd prosecute her for that behaviour alone.

MARSHALL As to what action to take - that leaves them split.

POLICE (ACTOR 4) She's dropped herself in it by what she said. She said
it's not for her, it's for somebody else, so that's supply. Some people
say this as a form of defence but you've got to look at what we've got -
0.2 grams of cocaine. Now it's a very small amount but I reckon it's just
enough for a caution - just about.

MARSHALL Again a colleague has a different interpretation of the same facts.

POLICE (ACTOR 5) The supply thing takes it to a new ballgame. It's a hard
drug, Class A, and that worries me. We'd have to prosecute. Cocaine is a
serious drug and she's supplying."

MARSHALL This difficult case left the officers divided. On her own
admission she was holding the small quantity of a class A drug - cocaine -
for somebody else. And she had children, and she was aggressive, all of
which left a slight majority favouring prosecution, while on exactly the
same evidence, almost as many went for a caution.

MARSHALL Cocaine has long had a reputation as a celebrity drug, one for
which today's pop stars get cautioned. But as with heroin and ecstasy
before it, this Class A banned drug is now pouring into the country. The
price has dropped and it's found a mass market. The old champagne image
has been cleared away. The new cocaine culture is reflected in a number of
90s lab The new cocaine culture is reflected in a number of 90s Lad
magazines - among them, 'Loaded'.

TIM SOUTHWELL, EDITOR 'LOADED' I think there's no point ignoring the fact
that people take cocaine and I think that our attitude is, no way would we
ever condone anyone taking it, because I do think it's a pretty stupid
drug, but it's happening. People are doing it, ordinary people are doing
it. I think if there is a sort of acceptance in 'Loaded', it's like if you
want it, if you took it occasionally, we wouldn't look down on someone for
doing that, simply because, you know, it's part and parcel of modern life
now. That drug is very much widely available in any pub in any satellite
town in the country, not just cities, people will be taking it in there, in
pubs, you know.

MARSHALL A bonfire party last weekend. People of all ages enjoy the
spectacle. They're having fun. But, the fireworks over, one group, in
their early 20s, move indoors and continue the celebration fuelled by wine
and their new drug of choice - cocaine. This is the cocaine generation and
they couldn't care less about the law.

TIME SOUTHWELL It's one of these moral issues. It's like do you see
yourself as a criminal if you park on double yellow lines, it's along that
sort of line. At the end of the day you want to make yourself a bit
happier, a bit higher.

MARHSALL The number of young users has trebled in the last couple of years.
20 to 24 year olds are the main consumers. They brag it's now a drug for all.

COCAINE GIRL Well that's the thing with coke though, that it's acceptable
for the posh person. Because it's expensive its got this sort of glamour
which is not.. it's less expensive now so it's losing its glamour which I
think is good.

MARSHALL So, here we go again. Each generation flouts the drug laws with
ever more serious drugs, and the government searches for more solutions and
laws.

TONY BLAIR BREAKFAST WITH FROST We haven't yet woken up to what we really
need to do to get this thing sorted.

PETER MARSHALL The government will be announcing yet another drugs policy
this week but the police and law enforcement will still be there in its
front line. And this despite the fact that many who've spent years waging
the war on drugs are now increasingly doubtful as to whether the drugs laws
can ever be made to work. In South Wales another ex-policeman who has
watched the growth of the drugs trade with dismay is Francis Wilkinson. He
was deputy chief in Hertfordshire before becoming Chief Constable in Gwent.
Mr Wilkinson, known as an independent thinker, believes the cocaine boom
is another clear sign of failed and muddled drugs policies.

FRANCIS WILKINSON FORMER CHIEF CONSTABLE, GWENT POLICE The logarithmic rise
of consumption of drugs of all varieties will continue. I mean the British
crime survey shows that over the last couple of years cocaine consumption
has doubled and over the previous couple of years it doubled as well. Well
it will double again in a couple of years, unless we do something to manage
the supply in a more effective way than we currently do.

MARSHALL A meeting of the board of Transform, campaigners to lift what they
call the prohibition on prohibition on drugs. Francis Wilkinson has just
become their patron. The first former chief constable to call for drugs
legalisation.

FRANCIS WILKINSON What I want is to take the criminal out of the market. At
present the whole drugs supply business, this whole, enormous,
international industry is controlled by criminals. If we look at the
social damage caused by the present regime, and I mean all the violence and
abuse that is carried on through the fact that it's a criminal business, if
we can get rid of that, then the fact that we are supplying the drug
through more highly regulated mechanisms locally will probably be a good
thing.

MARHSALL So drugs on prescription or under licence, to cut the link with
crime. The idea is simple, but whatever the government announce this week
they're not buying that.

KEITH HELLAWELL I do not see that they are going to be legalised. I do not
see that they ought to be legalised. I believe that the constraints we
have in this country are the right constraints and, incidentally, they are
the constraints that almost every country in the world has, and they are
not there for any political reason, they are there because governments
care, certainly because I care, about the use and availability of these
substances.

SGT SEAL Right gents, following our last warrants we are coming down to
complete another one. You all know the address that we are attending.
There's only one person at the address..

RAID OFFICER There's three people at the address: him, his partner and a
child.

SGT SEAL My apologies, him his partner and his child. Entry will be by
force.

MARSHALL Back in Hertfordshire, another day, another battle in the war on
drugs, another raid. They know the target and they believe he's a dealer.
Again it's an early morning call. The police are not welcome visitors, but
then they don't expect to be. The tactics of war aren't designed for
popularity. But overall they seem relieved for they have a result, of
sorts.

RAID OFFICER As the people went in the front, the chap opened his bottom
floor window and threw this out. Looks like resin, cannabis. I haven't had
a look in here yet but there's possibly more cannabis.

MARSHALL It's only about £350 worth and they've no evidence of dealing, so
it'll be a charge of possession of a class B drug. A hollow victory but
the war goes on.

SGT MICK SEAL I think we're doing a good job and I think we are keeping as
tight a lid on it as we can. I mean you're getting the impression that
everything has gone airy fairy and we're letting it all go but we're not.
And as long as society wants us to deal with it, we will deal with it this
way.