Posted on 06/18/2006 9:22:25 AM PDT by SittinYonder
SCOTLAND'S drugs tsar has sparked a furious row by openly declaring that the war on drugs is "long lost".
Tom Wood, a former deputy chief constable, is the first senior law enforcement figure publicly to admit drug traffickers will never be defeated.
Wood said no nation could ever eradicate illegal drugs and added that it was time for enforcement to lose its number one priority and be placed behind education and deterrence.
But his remarks have been condemned by Graeme Pearson, director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), who said he "strongly disagreed" with Wood.
The row has erupted as concern mounts about the apparent inability of police, Customs and other agencies to stem the flow of illegal drugs. It was reported yesterday that an eight-year-old Scottish school pupil had received treatment for drug addiction.
And despite decades of drug enforcement costing millions of pounds, Scotland has one of the worst drug problems in Europe, with an estimated 50,000 addicts. At least half a million Scots are believed to have smoked cannabis and 200,000 are believed to have taken cocaine.
Wood holds the influential post of chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, a body which advises the Executive on future policy. The fact that Wood and Pearson are at loggerheads over the war on drugs is severely embarrassing for ministers.
Wood said: "I spent much of my police career fighting the drugs war and there was no one keener than me to fight it. But latterly I have become more and more convinced that it was never a war we could win.
"We can never as a nation be drug-free. No nation can, so we must accept that. So the message has to be more sophisticated than 'just say no' because that simple message doesn't work.
"For young people who have already said 'yes', who live in families and communities where everybody says 'yes', we have to recognise that the battle is long lost."
He added: "Throughout the last three decades, enforcement has been given top priority, followed by treatment and rehabilitation, with education and deterrence a distant third.
"In order to make a difference in the long term, education and deterrence have to go to the top of the pile. We have to have the courage and commitment to admit that we have not tackled the problem successfully in the past. We have to win the arguments and persuade young people that drugs are best avoided."
Wood said he "took his hat off" to the SCDEA and added that it was essential to carry on targeting dealers. He stressed he was not advocating the decriminalisation or legalisation of any drugs.
"It's about our priorities and our thinking," said Wood. "Clearly, at some stage, there could be resource implications, but the first thing we have to do is realise we can't win any battles by continuing to put enforcement first."
But Pearson, director of the SCDEA, said he "fundamentally disagreed" that the war on drugs was lost.
"I strongly disagree when he says that the war on drugs in Scotland is lost. The Scottish Executive Drug Action Plan acknowledged that tackling drug misuse is a complex problem, demanding many responses. It is explicit within the strategy that to effectively tackle drug misuse, the various pillars of the plan cannot operate in isolation."
Alistair Ramsay, former director of Scotland Against Drugs, said: "We must never lose sight of the fact that enforcement of drug law is a very powerful prevention for many people and, if anything, drug law should be made more robust.
"The current fixation with treatment and rehabilitation on behalf of the Executive has really got to stop."
And Scottish Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said: "I accept Wood's sincerity, but this is a very dangerous message to go out. I would never say that we have lost the war on drugs. Things are dire, but we should never throw up the white flag."
But Wood's view was backed by David Liddell, director of the Scottish Drugs Forum, who said: "We have never used the term 'drugs war' and it's right to move away from that sort of approach. For every £1 spent on treatment, £9-£18 is saved, including in criminal justice. The balance has been skewed towards more punitive aspects."
And John Arthur, manager of the drugs advice organisation Crew 2000, said: "I think Tom Wood is right. This is something our organisation has been arguing for for a long time and it is good to see this is now coming into the mainstream."
Among the ideas now backed by Wood is less reliance on giving methadone as a substitute to heroin addicts.
He says other substitutes should be considered, as well as the possibility of prescribing heroin itself or abstinence programmes.
One new method being examined by experts is neuro-electric therapy, which sends electrical pulses through the brain. One addict with a five-year habit, Barry Philips, 24, from Kilmarnock, said the treatment enabled him to come off heroin in only five days.
Wood said: "We need to look at the other options. Other substitutes are used in other countries. They even prescribe heroin in Switzerland and there is a pilot in Germany, with pilots also mooted in England and, more recently, Scotland. We need to have a fully informed debate."
A Scottish Executive spokesman said: "We have a very clear policy on drugs, which is to balance the need to tackle supply and challenge demand. They have to go hand in hand and we make no apology for that."
And I similarly wouldn't hesitate in emptying a round into the "outraged" parents of such a criminal progeny if they tried taking revenge for their proper punishment. Peddle death, and you take your licks, it's that simple. Same goes if my kid was guilty of it, they're on their own.
Me... nor do I believe the cultural war and the war on terror are lost, all those other nasty little things that have to be waged to keep civilization civilized. If you don't want to fight for civilization, you can shut up and get out of the way for those that will. It's that simple.
No offense, friend, but what you're describing isn't "Civilization".
We shouldn't be taking our lessons on civilization from Iran. When you start to agree with them on matters of public policy, it's time to seriously question your perspective.
We'll have to disagree on that point. I'm just glad my grandfather, a WW1 veteran and native-born Scot, didn't live long enough to see the cultural breakdown of his homeland.
Your a bit inaccurate on your post... In Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia its death to all people that traffic drugs across their borders. There is a big difference between being a drug trafficker and a drug addict. Not saying that I am for this type of regime but this is what the deal is over there.
You're right, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I'll never agree with the notion that we can learn anything about "civilization" from Iran.
The only one talking about peddling death is you. Apparently, you've given yourself the right to be the judge, jury, and executioner over something that is hardly a felony in most states. Frankly, I worry more about people like you in society than someone who gives another person coke.
If you don't believe it is lost, you are way more delusional than I thought you were a response ago. What is your criteria for victory?
The post was in response to a statement that the only way to win the WoD would be to impose the death penalty for posession. Period. No distinction was made between posession for use and posession for sale, by either myself or the person who made the original post.
Any logical conslusions to be drawn from the combination of that post and your tag line?
This is a VERY qualified sentence. I don't think it goes as far as the headline makes it out:
"For young people who have already said 'yes', who live in families and communities where everybody says 'yes', we have to recognise that the battle is long lost."
We had no federal WOD prior to 1900, and our country seemed to be doing quite well. The last UN estimate I saw put the illegal drug trade at around $320 billion/year worldwide. That's somewhere between 10% and 20% of the size of the world oil market (total barrels consumed x price/barrel)-- and it goes right into the pockets of terrorists and organized criminals.
What's your plan for denying the bad guys their funding? (before you answer, please look at posts #64 and #76 on this thread for heroin addiction rates in Singapore, Iran, and the Netherlands.
http://www-1.ibm.com/services/uk/bcs/html/other/media/mpg/ibm_catapult_combo_rev_60_low.mpg
Sure it does. It says that there's around 450,000 in prison on drug offenses out of 2,019,234 -- that's 22%.
Your 70-80% drug-related offenses include those who possessed drugs or were high on drugs when they committed the crime they were charged with. They'd be arrested even if drugs were legal, so I don't see how we can count them.
"The fact is, more than 70% of prisoners are locked up for non-violent crimes, most for drug crimes or low level property crimes."
Well, if 22% are drug crimes, then I guess the other 48% are for property crimes. Your point?
"Drugs aren't creating criminals...You are!"
People make choices. Criminals made the wrong choice. I don't see how that's my fault.
Who uses interdiction rate as a measure of success? What if we tripled our interdiction rate yet drug use doubled. Would you call the program a success?
No. But when you are spending billions of dollars on interdiction, shouldn't there be some sort of way to measure success?
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