CALL ME THE MAD MULLAH OF THE POLICE BUT DRUGS SHOULD BE LEGAL

The Chief Constable Who Last Week Said Ecstasy Is Safer Than Aspirin
Peddles His Drug Theory to Our Correspondent

Few senior cops can boast such an electrifying record as Richard
Brunstrom. He recently stunned himself with a Taser gun to prove the
police device was not dangerous. Then he broke into his own
headquarters at night to highlight a lack of security. And last week
Brunstrom's sanity was questioned after he proclaimed that the
illegal drug ecstasy was "a remarkably safe substance" – safer
than aspirin.

Some maintain that a congenital predilection for self-publicity has
propelled North Wales's chief constable on his relentless campaign to
install ever more speed cameras, for which he earned the sobriquet
"the mad mullah of the traffic Taliban". Now he has the tabloids
frothing at the mouth over his zeal to legalise all drugs.

How does it feel, I ask, to be Tasered with 50,000 volts? "Very
uncomfortable," Brunstrom admits. He did it for "ethical reasons" to
demonstrate that the police's reassurances were true. So presumably
he's taken ecstasy for the same reason? "Never. I don't take illegal
substances. I've never touched cannabis in my life. I don't smoke. I
drink a little bit of alcohol but not to excess." He says that more
people die from taking aspirin than ecstasy.

"Why are heroin and cocaine illegal and not lighter fluid? It is
demonstrable that tobacco and alcohol are more addictive and more
dangerous than cannabis, yet they are not illegal. The question is
not whether I am mad, but why these things are illegal."

Brunstrom refers to 20 substances listed in a "hierarchy of harm"
printed in The Lancet last year. The league table is headed by
heroin, closely followed by cocaine, with alcohol in fifth place,
tobacco ninth, cannabis 11th and ecstasy 18th. If ecstasy, as he
stated on Radio 4's Today programme last week, was "far safer than
aspirin" how does he respond to the parents whose children have died
after taking a pill?

The policeman has a broad answer: "There has not been a single case
of someone dying as a result of being poisoned by ecstasy.

"The most famous case is that of Leah Betts, a young girl who
actually died of water poisoning in 1995. Because ecstasy causes you
to be thirsty, she drank too much water. Her brain stem was crushed
and her heart stopped. My advice to everybody is don't take ecstasy
in the first place. But why should it be a criminal offence? It may
be stupid, but why should you be arrested and prosecuted?"

His latest campaign has prompted the tabloids to replay a peal of
clangers by the 52-year-old Londoner. Notable was his decision to
display photographs of a headless motorcyclist to a public conference
without asking the family's permission. There have been calls for his
resignation, including a petition last year on the Downing Street
website that attracted 3,000 signatures. Why has he invited such
vilification? "Because it matters. I think I have a public duty to speak out."

Even if it costs him his job? "I have the backing of my police
authority. There are consequences to being notorious and vilified, of
course. But I'm far from alone in this."

He believes it would be ludicrous to ban alcohol and cigarettes and
wants them included in a new substance misuse act – but he
admits "nobody knows" how they might be regulated. He also advocates
the legalisation of class A, B and C drugs, which would be dispensed
by the state and thus deprive criminals of a multi-billion-pound
market. He doesn't want drug-takers needlessly criminalised.

Invoking numerous sources, he claims the war on drugs is unwinnable.
"It is not possible to run a democratic country and stop drugs
getting in," he insists. "We reckon, on the best evidence we've got,
that we stop between 10 and 12% at best of the drugs imported into the UK."

His assertions on heroin would give most antidrugs campaigners cold
turkey. Despite heading his "hierarchy of harm", he says it is "not
particularly dangerous", although highly addictive. "If taken
sensibly, heroin has no known adverse medical effects."

Brunstrom contends that prescribing heroin to addicts has been proved
to reduce their criminal activities: "Because most of their criminal
behaviour is driven by the need to gain cash and buy more drugs."

He rates cannabis as "demonstrably less dangerous and addictive than
tobacco", but concedes that crack cocaine makes people "extremely violent".

Unable to cite any precedents for the legalisation of drugs beyond
the recent case of Portugal, he says the experts know what is likely
to work. Of course, a similar confidence inspired legislation on
24-hour drinking.

The difficulty is not that Brunstrom doesn't have a case, but that he
undermines it with obtuse reasoning: comparing the relative safety of
ecstasy and aspirin has not left people angry at the absurdity of
policy, just thoroughly confused.