Strangling Criminal Gangs
In the west it is interesting prominent and senior figures are now calling for a better policy towards illegal drug use. The war on drugs has failed and just allowed criminal gangs to amass huge profits. Time for a different approach?
Before you react and say this is wrong, drugs are wrong! No one is disagreeing with you on that, but if banging your head against a wall leads to brain damage would you continue to do it?
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End war on drugs, says Durham police chief
Class A drugs should be decriminalised and drug addicts "treated and cared for not criminalised", according to a senior UK police officer.
Writing in the Observer, Chief Constable Mike Barton of Durham Police said prohibition had put billions of pounds into the hands of criminals.
He said a controlled environment would be a more successful way of tackling the issue.
Mr Barton suggested this could be done through the NHS.
'Route of supply'
The chief constable - who is the intelligence lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers - said he believed decriminalisation of Class A drugs would take away the income of dealers and destroy their power.
He said: "If an addict were able to access drugs via the NHS or something similar, then they would not have to go out and buy illegal drugs.
"Buying or being treated with, say, diamorphine is cheap. It's cheap to produce it therapeutically.
Addiction to anything is not a good thing, but outright prohibition hands revenue streams to villains”
"Not all crime gangs raise income through selling drugs, but most of them do in my experience. So offering an alternative route of supply to users cuts their income stream off.
"What I am saying is that drugs should be controlled. They should not, of course, be freely available."
Mr Barton compared drugs prohibition to the ban on alcohol in the US in the 1920s which fuelled organised crime.
He said some young people saw drug dealers as glamorous gangsters and envied their wealth.
I wish the police would do it outside the hotels of Doha. Problem is they would catch too many locals. There are in the bars and restaurants but do you ever see one get in a taxi? Filipinos are big offenders in drink driving as well
? The news is wrong?
And why random check? Is that not a violation of right? Can police just do that?
Flor in most western countries DUI crimes are down, but that is because of effective police enforcement. When have you seen the police in Doha or Manila stop drivers at night and do random breath tests?
are these on a downtrend now?
...And teh parallelism to drugs if ever!
Having spent a couple of years in Kazakhstan , I'd say that's a pretty funny comment from you Kazak.
N1v91, yup, exactly!
Alcohol was once criminalised in the US, back then , alcohol was the drug and the government was fighting bootleggers.But then the government made booze legal and that stopped alcohol bootlegging.But this hasn't eradicated alcoholics, same way drug addicts cannot be eradicated no matter what the government does,but drug related crimes can be reduced.
A drug addict is a person addicted to a particular drug. Which means no matter where he gets his drugs from , this person will remain addicted.It's impossible to mend the habits of a drug addict until he decides otherwise.If he gets his drugs from a drug trafficker,it means the drugs are illegal and illegal drugs have a harsh trail of untold stories behind it.The drug industry on the other hand is a multi-billion dollar industry, easily attracting many unfortunate cases.Therefore if the govt,decides to bring this industry under their control,it will bring in money for the govt which can be used to help the drug addicts.
Countries have people..people have religions..well at least some of them do! Yallah.. now back to the topic
Well I am with Brit(at the risk of sounding old fashioned as well). I don't agree that legalizing such destructive substances can ever be good to any society. It will not lower the number of addicts but make their poison easier to access. Drug fueled crimes will increase.And although it may end the drug-lords,it will not end drug related crimes in general. And no we cannot expect everyone to know where to draw the line and know when to stop!
Besides it's not only drugs the mafia deals with. Take away drugs and they will only replace it with more catastrophic enterprises.
Lol...gone offtopic
What has religion got to do with drug use? Seems you are a bit crazy
Don't really understand how a country can 'have religion'
Well what is food to one person might be poison to someone else. Honestly who are we to decide what or what not someone can do and what he cannot
Of course prevention is better than cure but we have failed in the last 100 years to eradicate hard drug use and catch the criminals. If we were good at it the price of illegal drugs would be going up but in fact around the world it has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years.
Remember the definition of stupidly is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We are very good at catching and punishing users but we rarely get the Mr Bigs.
Time for a new strategy.
Why don't we deal with this as personal choice?
In the past being homosexual was a crime. Now the genius humanistic highly educated etc.....etc. told us we are wrong. It's a personal choice.
So why wouldn't we go for the same when it comes to drugs. And you tell me where is this misirable world heading with every single person thinking of himself as his own sole execlusive ruler.
Tell that officer to keep his head cool always to bring in similar ideas. I think he is sick (mentally).
prosecuting the criminals now became an old fashion ?
I don't want to be modern then!
Call me old fashioned, a stick in the mud, out of touch, an old fool etc etc , but I belive that they should be left as is and Plod should do his job to catch and prosecute the criminals.
How?
Tertiary and Long Term cares are more expensive compared to preventive health care.
You reduced drug related organized crime,sure but how is that going to reduce crimes related to drug induced criminals?
"If an addict were able to access drugs via the NHS or something similar, then they would not have to go out and buy illegal drugs."
You are amazing officer, How didn't anybody think of this before, let the addicts by the drugs no need to buy from the outside, please Support the British drugs don't buy the Trafficker drugs.
Why not to control the drugs dealing more, Or this is the only way to save money, as in a thread I posted weeks ago, the British government wanted to legalize the drugs to save the money that are given to the Anti-drug police officers, and now they wanted it to be decriminalised
Yes I do.
Do you think it will be cheaper to treat heroin addicts instead?