Today’s strategic assessment of serious and organised crime
from the National Crime Agency paints a familiar picture. The NCA
report demonstrates significant increases in drug production and
supply and consequently, increased profits for organised
criminals.
Only yesterday, the NCA’s head of operations for drugs,
Vince O’Brien admitted: “We can’t arrest our way out
of [ongoing drug demand and supply] anymore than we can arrest
our way out of serious violence. We need to tackle the drivers
behind it.”
This follows recognition from the Police Federation’s drugs
lead that ‘prohibition has never worked’
and moves towards the decriminalisation of people caught in
possession of drugs among an increasing number of police
forces.
As , Police and Crime Commissioner for
Durham, has said: the UK needs ‘a serious discussion
about whether or not we legalise the illicit drugs we have at the
moment’.
Even the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has
acknowledged: ‘Global drug control efforts have had
a dramatic unintended consequence: a criminal black market of
staggering proportions. Organized crime is a threat to security.
Criminal organizations have the power to destabilize society and
Governments. The illicit drug business is worth billions of
dollars a year, part of which is used to corrupt government
officials and to poison economies.’
James Nicholls, CEO of Transform Drug Policy Foundation,
said:
“The time is right for the NCA and police to back reform,
as their own research shows enforcement is not working.
“Drug use is risky, but most of the harms described in this
report are the result of prohibition: ‘county lines’
exploitation, organised criminal involvement, violence and the
use of scarce resources blocking a fraction of illegal
shipments.
“The call for reform is getting louder and impossible to
ignore, especially among the police - who are at the frontline of
enforcing current drug laws.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
-
Transform Drug Policy Foundation is a UK and Mexico
based think tank campaigning for the legal regulation of
drugs: https://transformdrugs.org
-
UNODC: https://bit.ly/2dobDRF
-
: https://bit.ly/2FCTLhM
-
Simon Kempton, Police Federation Drugs Lead:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44216660
-
Vince O’Brien, NCA Drugs
Lead:
“Have we in disrupting
that criminal group made a large step in choking off drug
supply to the UK? I don’t think that is a realistic objective
for us to have. Because you can only tackle supply if you
tackle the demand market as
well.
“While
there is user base willing to spend millions and millions of
pounds worth on drugs, which represent millions and millions
of pounds worth of profit, then we will have an issue with
illicit drugs in this
country.
“We
can’t arrest our way out of that anymore than we can arrest
our way out of serious violence. We need to tackle the
drivers behind
it.”
“While we
have high levels of production and we have high levels of
demand we will continue to have the resilient market we have
at the moment."
https://bit.ly/2vTuXw3
