thank you let me tell you what it’s like
on the front lines of the drug war I
used to catch drug dealers for a living
as an undercover operative as I’ve just
said but it wasn’t very glamorous so I
would travel from inner city to inner
city and I would infiltrate problematic
drug users and manipulate them into
introducing me to gangsters then I would
climb my way through the organization
and eventually after several months of
work I would gather evidence of
conspiracy and bring down whole
organized crime groups and I would move
around the city their country doing this
now as I say it wasn’t it glamorous now
sometimes I would dress dress as a
Scully and for those not from the north
that’s traveling like thief so I would
be there with my Nike Air Max trainers
and my full Trekkie
now don’t no disrespect to anyone who is
into casual sportswear it it just
happens to be the uniform of thieves but
but as time as time went on I I actually
found that the most the best costume for
me to wear in order to infiltrate those
problematic youth drug users was to
actually look sort of almost homeless or
like I spent a lot of time in squats
well I did spend a lot of time in squats
so I would wear really scruffy filthy
clothes actually I’ve developed a
technique during one operation that at
the end of each day I would take my
clothes off I would tie them up in a
plastic bag and I would put them
somewhere warm overnight so they would
ruin really hum in the morning
now my colleagues my support team really
didn’t like this and they would complain
quite a lot so they’re the people who
would drive me to my plot drive me to
the place I was going to be undercover
for the day they would be winding down
the windows and say no you dirty get
what are you doing and I had to be fair
I did look and smell a mouse anyway one
day in an operation in Nottingham I was
dropped off and I was on my way to meet
a drug dealer who had been buying heroin
off for quite a few weeks if some reason
this day he was being driven around in a
taxi but he still made me walk over a
mile to meet him so I was dropped off
and I set off down this long curving
road just on the edge of the right
red-light area in Nottingham and as I
set off I heard this voice sex for sale
and I thought I know this is Nottingham
but that’s quite forward for half-past
one in an afternoon and I carried him
working walking and I heard the voice
again sex for sale I still couldn’t see
anybody it’s kept him walking sex for
sale and eventually I saw her just
around the bend in the road and I’m
walking towards her and she’s looking me
up and down and bearing in mind the
state I was in she looked me up and down
appraisingly and said cheap sex for sale
now I walked pasta and I went to meet
the gangster and I bought some heroin
then I went to do some shopping and sell
some stolen property and then I bought
some crack cocaine and the end of the
day I went back to my backup team and I
and I explained to them and I and I said
about the woman offering me cheap sex
and they all laughed and at times when
I’ve taught of the room to cover cops
and various of the police officers the
audience always laughs but you know when
I look back at that day I have no idea
what that gangster looked like because
he was just one gangster in an endless
stream of drug dealers and gangsters
that I’ve ER that I’ve encountered but
if I close my eyes I can see her face
absolutely perfectly she wasn’t a day
over 20 I would say she was very slim
and she was clutching a can of special
brew super-strength lager and the reason
she was doing that is because she was
desperately trying to fend off a
withdrawal from heroin and that
withdrawal from heroin is what took her
to the streets of Nottingham to offer me
cheap sex and I was the agent of the
state and I walked a right posture to go
and catch the drug dealer now I say it’s
an under stream of drug dealers I have
to point out that every drug dealer you
catch creates an opportunity for another
one
and generally the next one’s nastier
than the one that came before because
police are fantastic at catching drug
dealers
I’ve kept I caught so many myself but
police can never reduce the size of the
market only changed the shape of it but
it wasn’t all laughs I went to buy some
heroine months in Stoke and it was a
dealer I’ve been buying heroin off for
quite a few weeks I thought he was quite
happy with me anyway he opened the door
to me and the next thing I know I have a
samurai sword to my throat
and his face is they’re really angry and
blood registers so I was spitting out of
his mouth as he said your drug squad I
know you are
I thought honestly I’m not anyway after
a few minutes of trying to persuade him
and successfully persuading him I wasn’t
actually a police officer he sold me
some heroin and as I was shaking they’re
working away from the address putting
four 10-pound wraps of heroin into a
cigarette packet I stopped because in
front of me is a knife pointing at my
stomach someone’s trying to rub me for
the heroin I’ve just bought which of
course happens all the time in an
unregulated market because you can’t go
to the police and say excuse me officer
someone’s just robbed me from my heroin
it’s the Wild West out there and gets
more and more violent every year now I
published my tales of undercover work in
my previous book but for drug wars my
co-writer and I decided that people
don’t understand two fundamental things
about drug policy the first is just how
bad things are and the second is how
we’ve got to the point we are now so we
interviewed three generations of
Liverpool gangsters the first group got
into organized crime in the 1970s got
into the heroin explosion of the early
1980s he was the right-hand man of
Curtis Warren the first gangster who got
into the Sunday Times Rich List
but gangsters have learnt to be much
more careful with their money since then
the second one we interviewed got into
organized crime in the 1990s he got into
it from the sort of the dance music boom
where the door stuff became gangsters
and the third generation was a 16 year
old who had escaped county lines
drug-dealing
county lines drug dealing is where
children are exploited to transport and
sell heroin and crack between one city
and another perhaps the most important
question we asked these three people was
as a young gangster how easy would be
eight would it for you to be able to get
out of a gun and the oldest one he said
well as a kid I could have asked and I
would have been taken to the higher-ups
and I would have have to explain exactly
why I needed a gun
and then they would have said no they
would have said to me why on earth do
you want to draw attention to yourself
and to us by using a gun go and sort out
your problem toe-to-toe the second
gangster he says well when we got into
the trade you know we had stashes of
weapons but certainly on people wouldn’t
let them anywhere near guns and we asked
the 16 year old he says well you’d have
to give me a couple of hours in fact the
last time I needed a gun he said I went
to get one and the guy said I’d have to
wait until the end of the day but he
said I’ve got a hand grenade if you need
that so I took the hand grenade he said
he was 15 at the time and this was over
a territorial beef over the supply of
heroin so there is a very clear
indication of how things have changed
over time and perhaps one of the most
disturbing things about those interviews
is the two older gangsters stroke their
chin and in horror at the behavior of
youngsters and just how willing
youngsters are to use violence
the older gangsters were horrified at
the third generation but it wasn’t
always like this the prohibition of the
world that we have is an American
invention it was spread around the world
by a very aggressive American foreign
policy historically the resistance to
that American moralizing model was
called the British system by the rest of
the world the bridge is simple as a
British system is a fairly simple
premise that if someone has a problem
with drugs you take care of them you
look after them as soon as you
criminalize them you marginalize them
you push them to the fringes of society
and they are not able to get help
particularly in relation to heroin the
British system meant that if you had a
heroin addiction you were prescribed
heroin by a doctor but eventually the
Americans won
in 1971 when the misuse of Drugs Act
came in based on the American style of
prohibition there were 1046 problematic
heroin users in the United Kingdom from
that point when organized crime was
gifted that entire business it went up
to 350,000 within two decades simple
cause and effect we have created the
problem we have now by policy we have
gone from the prescription pad
controlling the heroin market to 15
year-olds with hand grenades it doesn’t
have to be like this we can go back to
treating drugs as a health problem and
not a criminal one we can regulate every
single drugs market from cannabis right
through to heroin but for heroin is
actually the simplest form of regulation
we would need because we just have it
controlled by doctors other drugs are
more complicated they need more nuanced
regulatory models for cannabis you need
to decide exactly what type of cannabis
can be sold to who where you need
photographic identification etc but for
heroin it’s straightforward addiction
spreads because it suits organized crime
to recruit more people to recruit user
dealers to find more customers that’s
the reason we went from a thousand to
three hundred and fifty thousand we
don’t have to be like this now it’s not
just me as a police officer saying this
I’m part of an international United
Nations accredited organization called
the law enforcement Action Partnership
we are police and law enforcement
professionals across the world in the
United States that includes judges
prosecutors sheriff’s Chiefs of Police
in the United Kingdom we have former
chief constables former mi5 other former
undercover operatives like myself and
we’re growing across the world
so please follow us on social media
you’ll find us the websites and the
unites
States the United Kingdom website is at
UK leap org you can find us on Twitter
you can find leap Europe you can find
leap Scandinavia and we are growing
rapidly because it is those people who
have fought on the front lines of this
war and it is a war don’t let people
tell you it isn’t because I’ve seen the
suffering the suffering is obvious it’s
vulnerable people get caught in the
middle like any war but its police
professionals like myself who are able
to see very clearly the harms that’s
caused and I ask you if there is a
simple way of rescuing people like that
young woman in Nottingham who was
offering cheap sex because she had a
health problem there is a way of
rescuing people like that from the
exploitation of a organised crime by
prescribing them heroin moralizing
people moralizing politicians some media
commentators would say that it’s immoral
to just give the drugs to that person
but I say to them Pitt to those people
why would you not rescue someone from
sexual exploitation why would you not
rescue somebody from the exploitation of
organised crime who is causing them to
go shoplifting and commit burglaries to
pay for ever increasing drug tax why
would you send them to prison where
drugs are more expensive sometimes five
times more expensive for them to build
up a drug debt for them to come out of
prison and then commit more crime why
would you do that makes no sense at all
50% of acquisitive crime thefts in the
United Kingdom are caused by less than
not 0.2% of the population that’s the
problematic heroin users now don’t judge
them for that crime
because there was a time in living
memory in this country when there was no
association with drugs and crime at all
none at all
that association between drug use and
crime has been caused by policy and
there is a very clear cause and effect
in our history Britain used to lead the
world in drug policy we can again but if
any of you agree with me or are just
starting to think about this then you
are the frontline of the social movement
that can bring this change because like
any social justice issue
it takes the social movement for it to
happen so thank you very much [Applause]
on the front lines of the drug war I
used to catch drug dealers for a living
as an undercover operative as I’ve just
said but it wasn’t very glamorous so I
would travel from inner city to inner
city and I would infiltrate problematic
drug users and manipulate them into
introducing me to gangsters then I would
climb my way through the organization
and eventually after several months of
work I would gather evidence of
conspiracy and bring down whole
organized crime groups and I would move
around the city their country doing this
now as I say it wasn’t it glamorous now
sometimes I would dress dress as a
Scully and for those not from the north
that’s traveling like thief so I would
be there with my Nike Air Max trainers
and my full Trekkie
now don’t no disrespect to anyone who is
into casual sportswear it it just
happens to be the uniform of thieves but
but as time as time went on I I actually
found that the most the best costume for
me to wear in order to infiltrate those
problematic youth drug users was to
actually look sort of almost homeless or
like I spent a lot of time in squats
well I did spend a lot of time in squats
so I would wear really scruffy filthy
clothes actually I’ve developed a
technique during one operation that at
the end of each day I would take my
clothes off I would tie them up in a
plastic bag and I would put them
somewhere warm overnight so they would
ruin really hum in the morning
now my colleagues my support team really
didn’t like this and they would complain
quite a lot so they’re the people who
would drive me to my plot drive me to
the place I was going to be undercover
for the day they would be winding down
the windows and say no you dirty get
what are you doing and I had to be fair
I did look and smell a mouse anyway one
day in an operation in Nottingham I was
dropped off and I was on my way to meet
a drug dealer who had been buying heroin
off for quite a few weeks if some reason
this day he was being driven around in a
taxi but he still made me walk over a
mile to meet him so I was dropped off
and I set off down this long curving
road just on the edge of the right
red-light area in Nottingham and as I
set off I heard this voice sex for sale
and I thought I know this is Nottingham
but that’s quite forward for half-past
one in an afternoon and I carried him
working walking and I heard the voice
again sex for sale I still couldn’t see
anybody it’s kept him walking sex for
sale and eventually I saw her just
around the bend in the road and I’m
walking towards her and she’s looking me
up and down and bearing in mind the
state I was in she looked me up and down
appraisingly and said cheap sex for sale
now I walked pasta and I went to meet
the gangster and I bought some heroin
then I went to do some shopping and sell
some stolen property and then I bought
some crack cocaine and the end of the
day I went back to my backup team and I
and I explained to them and I and I said
about the woman offering me cheap sex
and they all laughed and at times when
I’ve taught of the room to cover cops
and various of the police officers the
audience always laughs but you know when
I look back at that day I have no idea
what that gangster looked like because
he was just one gangster in an endless
stream of drug dealers and gangsters
that I’ve ER that I’ve encountered but
if I close my eyes I can see her face
absolutely perfectly she wasn’t a day
over 20 I would say she was very slim
and she was clutching a can of special
brew super-strength lager and the reason
she was doing that is because she was
desperately trying to fend off a
withdrawal from heroin and that
withdrawal from heroin is what took her
to the streets of Nottingham to offer me
cheap sex and I was the agent of the
state and I walked a right posture to go
and catch the drug dealer now I say it’s
an under stream of drug dealers I have
to point out that every drug dealer you
catch creates an opportunity for another
one
and generally the next one’s nastier
than the one that came before because
police are fantastic at catching drug
dealers
I’ve kept I caught so many myself but
police can never reduce the size of the
market only changed the shape of it but
it wasn’t all laughs I went to buy some
heroine months in Stoke and it was a
dealer I’ve been buying heroin off for
quite a few weeks I thought he was quite
happy with me anyway he opened the door
to me and the next thing I know I have a
samurai sword to my throat
and his face is they’re really angry and
blood registers so I was spitting out of
his mouth as he said your drug squad I
know you are
I thought honestly I’m not anyway after
a few minutes of trying to persuade him
and successfully persuading him I wasn’t
actually a police officer he sold me
some heroin and as I was shaking they’re
working away from the address putting
four 10-pound wraps of heroin into a
cigarette packet I stopped because in
front of me is a knife pointing at my
stomach someone’s trying to rub me for
the heroin I’ve just bought which of
course happens all the time in an
unregulated market because you can’t go
to the police and say excuse me officer
someone’s just robbed me from my heroin
it’s the Wild West out there and gets
more and more violent every year now I
published my tales of undercover work in
my previous book but for drug wars my
co-writer and I decided that people
don’t understand two fundamental things
about drug policy the first is just how
bad things are and the second is how
we’ve got to the point we are now so we
interviewed three generations of
Liverpool gangsters the first group got
into organized crime in the 1970s got
into the heroin explosion of the early
1980s he was the right-hand man of
Curtis Warren the first gangster who got
into the Sunday Times Rich List
but gangsters have learnt to be much
more careful with their money since then
the second one we interviewed got into
organized crime in the 1990s he got into
it from the sort of the dance music boom
where the door stuff became gangsters
and the third generation was a 16 year
old who had escaped county lines
drug-dealing
county lines drug dealing is where
children are exploited to transport and
sell heroin and crack between one city
and another perhaps the most important
question we asked these three people was
as a young gangster how easy would be
eight would it for you to be able to get
out of a gun and the oldest one he said
well as a kid I could have asked and I
would have been taken to the higher-ups
and I would have have to explain exactly
why I needed a gun
and then they would have said no they
would have said to me why on earth do
you want to draw attention to yourself
and to us by using a gun go and sort out
your problem toe-to-toe the second
gangster he says well when we got into
the trade you know we had stashes of
weapons but certainly on people wouldn’t
let them anywhere near guns and we asked
the 16 year old he says well you’d have
to give me a couple of hours in fact the
last time I needed a gun he said I went
to get one and the guy said I’d have to
wait until the end of the day but he
said I’ve got a hand grenade if you need
that so I took the hand grenade he said
he was 15 at the time and this was over
a territorial beef over the supply of
heroin so there is a very clear
indication of how things have changed
over time and perhaps one of the most
disturbing things about those interviews
is the two older gangsters stroke their
chin and in horror at the behavior of
youngsters and just how willing
youngsters are to use violence
the older gangsters were horrified at
the third generation but it wasn’t
always like this the prohibition of the
world that we have is an American
invention it was spread around the world
by a very aggressive American foreign
policy historically the resistance to
that American moralizing model was
called the British system by the rest of
the world the bridge is simple as a
British system is a fairly simple
premise that if someone has a problem
with drugs you take care of them you
look after them as soon as you
criminalize them you marginalize them
you push them to the fringes of society
and they are not able to get help
particularly in relation to heroin the
British system meant that if you had a
heroin addiction you were prescribed
heroin by a doctor but eventually the
Americans won
in 1971 when the misuse of Drugs Act
came in based on the American style of
prohibition there were 1046 problematic
heroin users in the United Kingdom from
that point when organized crime was
gifted that entire business it went up
to 350,000 within two decades simple
cause and effect we have created the
problem we have now by policy we have
gone from the prescription pad
controlling the heroin market to 15
year-olds with hand grenades it doesn’t
have to be like this we can go back to
treating drugs as a health problem and
not a criminal one we can regulate every
single drugs market from cannabis right
through to heroin but for heroin is
actually the simplest form of regulation
we would need because we just have it
controlled by doctors other drugs are
more complicated they need more nuanced
regulatory models for cannabis you need
to decide exactly what type of cannabis
can be sold to who where you need
photographic identification etc but for
heroin it’s straightforward addiction
spreads because it suits organized crime
to recruit more people to recruit user
dealers to find more customers that’s
the reason we went from a thousand to
three hundred and fifty thousand we
don’t have to be like this now it’s not
just me as a police officer saying this
I’m part of an international United
Nations accredited organization called
the law enforcement Action Partnership
we are police and law enforcement
professionals across the world in the
United States that includes judges
prosecutors sheriff’s Chiefs of Police
in the United Kingdom we have former
chief constables former mi5 other former
undercover operatives like myself and
we’re growing across the world
so please follow us on social media
you’ll find us the websites and the
unites
States the United Kingdom website is at
UK leap org you can find us on Twitter
you can find leap Europe you can find
leap Scandinavia and we are growing
rapidly because it is those people who
have fought on the front lines of this
war and it is a war don’t let people
tell you it isn’t because I’ve seen the
suffering the suffering is obvious it’s
vulnerable people get caught in the
middle like any war but its police
professionals like myself who are able
to see very clearly the harms that’s
caused and I ask you if there is a
simple way of rescuing people like that
young woman in Nottingham who was
offering cheap sex because she had a
health problem there is a way of
rescuing people like that from the
exploitation of a organised crime by
prescribing them heroin moralizing
people moralizing politicians some media
commentators would say that it’s immoral
to just give the drugs to that person
but I say to them Pitt to those people
why would you not rescue someone from
sexual exploitation why would you not
rescue somebody from the exploitation of
organised crime who is causing them to
go shoplifting and commit burglaries to
pay for ever increasing drug tax why
would you send them to prison where
drugs are more expensive sometimes five
times more expensive for them to build
up a drug debt for them to come out of
prison and then commit more crime why
would you do that makes no sense at all
50% of acquisitive crime thefts in the
United Kingdom are caused by less than
not 0.2% of the population that’s the
problematic heroin users now don’t judge
them for that crime
because there was a time in living
memory in this country when there was no
association with drugs and crime at all
none at all
that association between drug use and
crime has been caused by policy and
there is a very clear cause and effect
in our history Britain used to lead the
world in drug policy we can again but if
any of you agree with me or are just
starting to think about this then you
are the frontline of the social movement
that can bring this change because like
any social justice issue
it takes the social movement for it to
happen so thank you very much [Applause]
Please follow and like us: