WHY I WANT ALL DRUGS LEGALISED

As a former drugs squad chief I've seen too may youngsters die. I'm
determined my children don't get hooked - which is why I want all drugs
legalised.

Seven years of my life was spent in Scotland Yard anti-drugs squad, four as
its head. I saw the misery that drug abuse can cause. I saw at first hand
the squalor, the wrecked lives, the deaths.

And I saw, and arrested when I could, the people who do so well out of
drugs; the dealers, the importers, the organisers. I saw the immense
profits they were making out of human misery, the money laundering, the
crime syndicates they financed.

They were running a business - a hugely profitable business where mark-ups
were immense, where they had a captive market, and where they paid no taxes
on their profits.

Later, in the murder squad, I saw the drugs-related killings. And as 'crime
manager' of London police stations, I saw the knock-on crime: the muggings,
break-ins and burglaries to which addicts resort to pay for their drugs. I
had a professional interest in stopping all this.

Now I am retired, I have the strongest of personal vested interests in
reducing drug use. I have two children at a vulnerable age and I will do
anything in my power to keep them from the clutches of the drug barons, and
to keep them from abusing drugs.

So when I now say "let us legalise drugs", I hope I will not be accused of
being tolerant of the evils that drugs cause, or soft on the thugs and
violent criminals who push drugs, wreck lives, and are imperilling our
society.

SUFFERED

I say legalise drugs because I want to see less drug abuse, not more. And I
say legalise drugs because I want to see the criminals put out of business.

I learned one thing in those years: we all pay for drugs. The true cost of
every drug deal falls on the public. Muggings, cars broken into, houses
burgled - if you have suffered, the odds are that the goods you lost were
used to pay for drugs. The money they fetched went into the hands of the
drug barons.

More than half the victims of theft are victims of drug crime. The huge
profits the drug-pushers make come from your pocket and mine. Everyone who
pays increased insurance premiums is doing so, indirectly, for that same
reason.

We have attempted prohibition. Police forces used to target the end-user.
All that happened was that courts and laboratories became clogged with
thousands of cases of small, individual users, and a generation of young
people came to think of the police as their enemies. There were no
resources left to fight other crime.

In sheer self-defence, senior police then concentrated on the supply chain
- - the pushers - and tolerated possession. End-users were let off with a
caution. It saved court and laboratory time, reduced friction between
police and young people, but gave us the worst of both worlds: a high crime
rate and high profits for the criminals.

If prohibition is the right policy, why hasn't it worked? drug use is now
part of the social life of around half of our children. From cannabis to
registered heroin addiction, drug use is growing.

Police and Customs have had their successes but each large seizure they
make merely drives up the price on the street, guaranteeing even higher
profits for the criminals.

Quite obviously, prohibition has failed.

Demand and supply are increasing. The pushers make profits that are quite
obscene. And as the stakes get higher, the violence more vicious. It means
attempts to corrupt the legal system, grievous personal injury and even
murder.

Why does drug gang violence occur? Because criminals fight to expand their
trade and make more money. They have a monopoly business and a captive
market: so the only competition is among themselves.

Government of all hues credit 'market forces' with invincible power - yet
refuse to unleash that power, or deploy it in the drug fight. Let us use
market forces to drive them out of business.

We can take the criminal out of the supply chain, and reduce demand by
economic means and by education. We cannot do it by policing. Lord knows we
have been trying long enough.

COWARDLY

Time and again politicians parrot one phrase: Legalising drugs is
'unthinkable'. Yet politicians are paid to think. Sadly, their leaders
forbid them licence to even discuss the matter.

The pushers earn my hatred: politicians who are too cowardly to think, or
to promote public debate, earn my contempt.

They forget, those who spout the word 'unthinkable', that drugs like heroin
were once legal, and fairly recently too. In the Sixties, clinics were
allowed to prescribe to heroin addicts, drugs from reputable, medical
sources at prices that were not inflated.

Today, drugs at cost equivalent of £1,000 pound on the street could be
produced for the NHS for just £1. That is £999 that would not have to be
found by the addicts - in other words, stolen from you. It is £999 that
would not go straight into the pockets of crime syndicates.

The benefit to the drug addict would be huge. Getting his drugs from a
legal source would access him to counselling, support, therapy - all the
things he or she needs to break dependency.

'Legalised cannabis' does not mean 'encourage cannabis'. It means the
reverse. I want to see the lowest level of drug abuse, with the least
detrimental effect on everyone else.

Legalised cannabis would mean that parents and teachers could discuss it
with young people openly, not confrontationally. It means those thinking of
using it will get education, not propaganda, and they will be less likely
to take it as a gesture of adolescent rebellion. The same applies to the
harder drugs.

ASHAMED

If reputable companies, of the calibre of ICI, say, were allowed to make
and sell these drugs there would be education, knowledge and quality
control. The price would plummet.

The criminals would be hit where it hurts them most - in their pockets.
Their power-base would be cut from under their feet. They would have no
more clients. We would truly drive them out of business.

I abhor drug abuse and criminal activity. I condemn a policy that profits
criminals, and I am angered by the drug crimes that effect us all. I am
ashamed at the limited resources available to support victims and their
families, and I am angered most by politicians who claim to have no licence
even to discuss alternatives.

We now have a drug czar, with wide-ranging powers. Keith Hellawell is a man
of experience. He has a proper background and broad vision. Let us hope
that the politicians will allow him to use it.