Special Report - Part Three Of Five: Losing The War On Drugs

POLICE ON THE FRONT LINE

Officers Understand The Need For A More Enlightened Approach, But Is Anyone
Else Prepared To Support Them?

It is Tuesday morning and PC Allan Morley is holding court in front of a
class of about 20 third-years at Auchinleck secondary school in Ayrshire.
He hits play on his tape recorder and out booms the voice of every parent's
boite noire -- Eminem, evangelist of ecstasy. He is singing a line from the
song My Fault, which goes: 'I never meant to give you mushrooms girl, I
never meant to bring you to my world.'

After a long stint working undercover in the drug squad, Morley is taking a
break from the frontline and acting as the drugs awareness officer for
Strathclyde Police in Ayrshire. Eminem finishes his tune, and Morley flicks
off the tape. 'Let's be frank,' he says to the class. 'Drugs are
everywhere. The most prevalent drug is cannabis -- and why's that? Because
it's a social drug, just like drink.'

Later, one 14-year-old girl, Sharon, told me: 'I never believed cops would
talk like that to us. He made a lot of sense. I thought he was going to
walk in and give us a row, but he was cool.'

Police attitudes towards the war on drugs have radically changed. All the
officers I have spoken to now regard addiction as a health problem rather
than a criminal one. They want to see more help for addicts wanting to come
off drugs, more information for youngsters experimenting with drugs, and a
more realistic attitude than the blithe assumption that cannabis inevitably
leads to heroin.

That is not to say they favour a soft approach. There are mixed feelings on
the decriminalisation of cannabis, but none on the need for tough action
against dealers. The police know better than anyone that effective action
has to be focused and targeted.

Superintendent Alastair McNaughton, who heads Strathclyde Police's
Spotlight campaign to tackle serious crime, says: 'We need to recognise
that we will never get rid of drugs. We will never win the war on drugs --
the best we can do is keep it under control. We need to find the money to
fund more rehab services. It's fine for me to target addicts, but that
doesn't solve the crime problem.

'People don't commit crime because they use cannabis: they commit crime
because they are unemployed and on smack. Many would never become criminals
if they had never got involved with drugs. And some end up as criminals
because of just one reason -- social exclusion.

'Maybe jail isn't the answer as it won't help some addicts. All that
happens to them is that they go to prison, don't receive treatment and end
up back in the same life with no hope and more smack. It would be far
better to send them to rehab -- but will Joe Public pay for that in his taxes?'

McNaughton is brave and bold enough to suggest that a controlled programme
of prescription heroin might be the best option for Scottish addicts,
because at least then the supply is pure and not bastardised by repeated
cutting with everything from Ajax to flour.

Officers still call dealers 'scumbags', but when it comes to addicts the
Strathclyde force has a very different view. The top brass are frank,
grown-up and realistic about drugs.

The force's head of crime, Assistant Chief Constable Graeme Pearson, argues
for better support services in health and social work to stop addicts
turning to crime. "Their lives are in chaos, so when they want help they
should be given it immediately," he says.

'It's wrong that someone who is crying out for help to get off drugs has to
wait months for medication. For the period of time that they can't get on
medication, they will rob and steal to buy drugs. By the time they get
their medical appointment, their lives are so screwed up that they miss
their appointment, and on it goes. Some addicts should be seen as ill, not
criminal. Criminalising users isn't the way to get solutions ; help and
pity is.'

Chief Superintendent Barry Dougall, the force's drug co-ordinator, is clear
why we need to be a little more enlightened about addiction. Where drug
deaths used to be confined to the cities, they are now spreading into rural
areas, and both he and Pearson are very worried by the growing power of the
big dealers. 'They are becoming affluent and rich beyond their dreams,' he
says. 'They are beginning to buy the system with slick lawyers and
accountants. If we don't crush them, the dealers will be running Scotland.'

But how do you stop the dealers? One of the main ways, according to Pearson
and Dougall, is to persuade their potential clients not to use drugs, and
to help their existing clients get away from drugs. The force also wants
money made available from the seized assets of dealers to go into new rehab
services and to be used to regenerate communities riven by addiction.