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."
If "War is hell." is what you tell the court in defense of your family and friends:
A. The court will find them innocent as they must have used drugs to counter your influence.
B. You will likely find yourself very alone from then on.
Look, it's real easy to throw out some cheap talk on FR just to get everyone reaching for the Rolaids. Okay, you win. Now, can we contain this debate to the rational?
Now, can we contain this debate to the rational?
The only rational thing is to stop looking for or expecting a complete victory. We keeping fighting the good fight and figure out how to fight it better.
"The GOS [Government of Singapore] nonetheless is concerned about the increase in addiction rates and recidivism among drug offenders who have undergone treatment. There are currently about 9,000 addicts undergoing rehabilitation in Singapore treatment centers, the same number as in 1995."
--http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html
The Netherlands-- "Demand Reduction. The Netherlands has extensive demand reduction programs and lowthreshold medical services for addicts, who are also offered drug rehabilitation programs. Authorities believe such programs reach about 7080 percent of the country's 25,000 harddrug users. [my note: in a total population of 15.1 million]
--http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1996_narc_report/index.html
_______________________________________
Using a population of 3 million for Singapore in 1996, that works out to an addiction rate of about 0.30%. Using the State Dept. figures for the Netherlands, and a population of 15.1 million, the addiction rate was about 0.17%.
Also note that the Singapore figure only takes into account the addicts under treatment, whereas the figure for Holland is the estimate of the total number of addicts.
http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm
It is Sun Jun 18 2006
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Money Spent on the War On Drugs this Year
Federal $9,350,937,619
State $14,353,743,309
Total $23,704,833,150
The U.S. federal government spent over $19 billion dollars in 2003 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $600 per second. The budget has since been increased by over a billion dollars.
Source: Office of National Drug Control Policy
State and local governments spent at least another 30 billion.
Source: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University: "Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets," January, 2001.
People Arrested for Drug Law Offenses this Year
Arrests for drug law violations in 2006 are expected to exceed the 1,678,192 arrests of 2003.
Someone is arrested every 20 seconds.
Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation
People Arrested for Cannabis Law Offenses this Year
In 2002, 45.3 percent of the 1,538,813 total arrests for drug abuse violations were for marijuana -- a total of 697,082.
Of those, 613,986 people were arrested for marijuana possession alone.
This is a slight decrease from 2000, when a total of 734,497 Americans were arrested for marijuana offenses, of which 646,042 were for possession alone
. Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation
People Incarcerated for Drug Law Offenses this Year
Since December 31, 1995, the U.S. prison population has grown an average of 43,266 inmates per year. About 25 per cent are sentenced for drug law violations.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Well, my friend, with your Islamofacist-like suggestion/solution, we would be executing hundreds of thousands--if not millions--of our fellow citizens a year.
Good luck!!
My problem is nothing compared with what you went through. I hope and pray things are getting better for you.
20% are there for drug related offenses (and 75% of those are black or Hispanic), and almost all of those are for trafficking or drug dealing. Very few are there for possession, and I would guess those cases were plea-bargained down from dealing.
So you support spending $19 billion in one year on the WOD? You support arrested more than 1.6 million people? You support the costs in building and housing 43,000 new inmates each year?
Call me an Islamofascist if you want, but my point remains: We are not doing anything in the WOD other than growing the government and eroding personal liberties and destroying private property rights.
The current state of affairs is unacceptable to me.
IF we are committed to winning the war on drugs, then we must find a better way to fight it. Executing people for possession is the only solution I see to winning the War on Drugs.
If you've got a better way, maybe you could suggest that instead of calling me names.
I would argue that we are not fighting the good fight ... we are growing the government both in terms of size, cost and authority. And we are no winning. There must be another solution.
And if you're not willing to execute them for it, then there is no practical solution.
The most widely abused drug in America is alcohol so why don't you advocate for execution for anyone caught drunk?
It's just a nutty idea that distracts away from real and achievable solutions.
If we just had a drugues ztxtcztzarr, then we'd finally win.
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report -2003
Iran has executed more than 10,000 narcotics traffickers in the last decade; executions continue, but the UNODC reports that many in the Iranian judiciary are questioning the deterrent effect of executions.
The Iranian Government (GOI) estimates that about two percent of Iran's 67.7 million citizens (that is, about 1,354,000 people) are regular drug abusers (drug-dependent addicts), but many respected observers of drug abuse worldwide view this estimate as low. ~snip~ The GOI seems particularly concerned over the sharp increase in intravenous drug abuse.
-- http://www.parstimes.com/news/archive/2004/state/narcotics_report_2003.html
______________________________________
1. If you compare the scope of heroin addiction in Iran and Singapore to the scope of the problem in the Netherlands, which do you think has a better handle on the heroin problem?
2. What is your preferred approach between the alternatives you've presented?
Why do you think sacrificing everyone's liberty is a price worth paying to stop some among us from ruining their own lives? Yes I know, a ruined life ruins some lives around it. A police state ruins everyone's life.
We already have the same defeat as Scotland. The only difference is we won't admit it. Refusing to acknowledge reality for ideological reasons is one of man's greatest weaknesses.
Remember, ya can't arrest and account for 20 million illegals, but rounding up 50 million or so drug-using Americans shouldn't be too much of a problem.
The saddest part is that I feel the world has learned so little about the consequences of drug abuse that has happened to so many families.
SittinYonder and others talk about killing users and dealers. Well are they ready to raise their kids by themselves? Shall we kill the medical doctors who over prescribe, also? They and all the bartenders and drug dealers. Again, to those "tough talkers": it's easy to call 'em from the bench..........
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.