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There's no room for tolerance in the war against drugs
date: 14-December-2005
source : YORKSHIRE TODAY
country: UNITED KINGDOM
keyword: CIVIL RIGHTS , DEMONIZATION , DRUG WAR , PROPAGANDA , STEREOTYPE
 
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Kill'em all we say...... paraphernalia would also like to make some headway against the insidious evil of the addiction of power afflicting politicians. Ooops, we are not talking about the same thing are we?

Raymond Curry is a former chairman of Leeds magistrates.

THE specialist drugs courts being tested in Leeds and London are billed as the latest initiative aimed at reducing drug abuse and related crime, even though drug treatment and testing orders have been around for some time.
Let us at least wish it success, however. It was announced last week that hard drug offences have risen by 16 per cent, but that the number of offences for the use of soft drugs has fallen by 21 per cent.
Of course the latter figure is hardly surprising since the Government has downgraded cannabis in the scale of offending, aided and abetted by some police forces in parts of the country, notably in some London boroughs.
Further, the latest set of guidelines emerging from the Home Office as to how and when the police may arrest and take action about drugs, for personal use or for supply to others, totally fails to address the problem of usage.
In essence it is caving in to the inevitable following the earlier relaxations of attitude, yet despite the fact that lower tolerances tried out in parts of London have proved a disaster, bringing hordes of additional dealers on to the streets, our Home Secretary proceeds apace to loosen more strings of control.
At least the newly enlightened police in those trial boroughs have, reportedly, decided to reverse their policy of tolerance.
Others who know far more about the problem than me, such as former West Yorkshire Chief Constable Keith Hellawell, have made very firm statements about the result of relaxing controls.
Whereas it may be true that not everyone who tries cannabis becomes a violent criminal, or goes on to harder drugs, the evidence is there that most who are on hard drugs have graduated from lesser options. It is a danger of which the risk of abuse is too high to leave to chance.
In addition, a huge proportion of the crime highlighted daily in the media relates to drug usage. Most notably, it was recently reported that the two violent murderers of Merseyside teenager Anthony Walker had partaken of a number of "joints" before making their vile attack on a defenceless person.
Over the years, magistrates have heard a progression of excuses involving drugs. At first the plea that "this offender has a drug problem" was frequently suspected to be a ploy to get the sympathy of the bench.
But this later moved to being a genuine problem of serious abuse and more latterly such pleas became absolutely normal for a very great number of cases, probably being true in the vast majority of them.
There is a history in Britain of increased tolerance invariably leading to more bounds being broken. This is no less so for drugs than for anything else, but with drugs there is an added danger.
Provision of the product encourages further market forces to prevail. Demand requires providers and providers then seek more outlets. This has now been proved to be the case in London where relaxation of street controls attracted more dealers, more dealers attracted more users, even more dealers came in… and so on.
Britain has a serious drug problem and it is getting worse. So in order to resolve it, we are giving up the pursuit of those who appear to be at the lower end of the scale, as users alone.
The laws of supply and demand will therefore run amok: for as long as users are allowed to use, providers will be needed to provide. The principle way to stop providers is to demolish the user market.
Sadly, one of the reasons the prostitution market is flourishing is because so many of those who tramp the streets are hooked on drugs and finish up in an endless cycle of doing the business to pay for the drugs, while the drug providers, being the pimps, control the operations as well as the supply of drugs.
The Government needs to take firm control of the situation and stamp down firmly on all usage, as in the end this is the main, if not the only, way the problem will be solved.
Of course, it is important to catch and stop the dealers who bring the products in from abroad, but if they cannot sell the goods they will cease to provide them, or at least be severely discouraged from doing so.
Education has an important part to play. For quite a long period in Yorkshire, supported by the NHS, police, magistrates, schools and almost every agency associated with young people, there was a programme of drug education named Radical.
It was a programme which went out directly to children in schools and made the most of other opportunities to get through to young people. But Radical stopped because of a cut in funding and it was many years later before Tony Blair started to talk about the need to take prevention seriously by offering programmes of drug education.
In the meantime, whereas agencies had done their best with what they had available, it all fell far short of what was required and the resources were woefully inadequate. Years of preventative opportunities were lost.
The sophistication of the big drugs rings is highly refined. It is not just a matter of a few frightened carriers bringing in small quantities in swallowed condoms, or stitched into suitcases. The stuff comes in by the lorry load.
Nor is it, as some bigots claim, merely a product of certain cultures, as almost daily white British people are taken to court for highly organised drug importation.
Indeed, I can recall from bail hearings, in which we magistrates had to hear cases in detail while defendants were waiting for a Crown Court hearing, many of the latter people being central to major drug provision in West Yorkshire.
Drugs affect everybody, especially those who get enticed into usage as children and who are then affected for the rest of their lives, lives which are sometimes abysmally and tragically cut short by this abuse. Drugs respect no differences in terms of class or social groupings.
There is no room for tolerance. The law must be hard and firm and make sure that every case of illegal use is properly prosecuted in the courts.
Given the proper tools for sentencing and rehabilitation, users may be discouraged, and by imposing severe penalties for providers, it may be possible to begin to make some headway against this insidious evil.

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