Interviewed this week by BBC Radio Wales, I said that Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom’s report to the North Wales police authority, in which he called for the decriminalisation of scheduled drugs, was a “counsel of despair”.Interestingly, precisely the same expression has been employed by an ACPO spokeswoman quoted in today’s Western Mail.
Richard Brunstrom has been flogging this particular dead horse for far too long. It attracts lots of publicity for him but virtually no support from public, politicians or police. He would be very well advised to give it up as a lost cause.
I sincerely hope that the members of the police authority are sufficiently robust to tell him as much next week.
2 comments:
Its about time the Police Service stopped all these stupid gimmicks and went back to being a POLICE FORCE and started ENFORCING the law as they are paid to do.
Good morning David
I have read with interest the latest in a line of reports about the decriminalisation of drugs
from our Chief Constable backed unfailingly by his police authority.
So as we know, our Chief wants possession of all drugs such as cocain and heroin to be decriminalised and a focus on
new classifications based on the hierarchy of harm.
In his new report he is full of rhetoric "not fit for purpose" being just one form of flattery about existing law.
Amazing that he advocates possession as lawful for consenting adults but spins about controls on the possession by minors. No detail there about how these controls would work or be applied.
One only haS TO LOOK AT ALCOHOLIC DRINK AS AN EXAMPLE, consenting adults can buy at will and possess
and consume but it is restricted as far as underage youth is concerned. Does that work? of course not.
Of course it will be unlawful to drive or beat anyone up whilst under the influence of drugs. How many points will that add to an officers points total?
At least at present it is unlawful to possess drugs even if point scoring police officers cannot
combat the crime element. Unlawful is a deterrent to some who would maybe try drugs otherwise.
What is not apparent in this report is how the drugs will be dispensed. Free to drug addicts but what about the rest? Are we to see the birth of a new chain "Drugbusters" 75 pence a line!!.
Pleanty of rhetoric in this report then but not much detail.
What is certain? crime figures will drop dramatically.
The problem will be passed to other agencies including incidentally in time to the Health Service and certainly will not disappear. The danger of this report is the fact that a senior police officer has broken ranks
publicly and again undermined the control of drugs, without giving a future idea of controls. The result of this in my view is that the youths that we see on the streets take a steer from this; "the chief constable is on our side".
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