It is not a sensational headline, it is in fact to all intent and purposes a true one. The Durham Police force is to supply heroin addicts with a medical grade form of heroin called diamorphine. This will be at the expense of the Police budget, and therefore will cost the tax paying public of Durham £15,000 per addict.
Durham`s Police and Crime Commissioner Ron Hogg has proposed this scheme based on the evidentiary findings of a study in Darlington some six years ago by King’s College London between 2006 – 2011. Mr Hogg is quoted as saying “it really is a very sensible approach which will help them and reduce crime”. This may possibly be the case, what is not made clear however is how many addicts, given free heroin on the original programme, went on to remain or return to the addiction and therefore continued a life of crime to service their habit.
The programme this time will be offered to a small number of “prolific” offenders, and not to everyone who has a heroin addiction. This addiction can run at a cost of up to £300 per week and addicts, to fund their malaise, will commit crime. The question here is what constitutes a “prolific offender”, what is the cut-off point? Mr Hogg goes on to say the programme will be managed from six existing drug and alcohol recovery hubs based in the area.
Mr Hogg goes on to claim “it’s a cost-effective use of police money”. He adds that “the time scale and size of the project would depend on costs”, but then added that he “would like to see something in place by the end of the year”.
The Chief Constable Mike Barton backs the idea but is leaving the management of it to the PCC. This does not sound like a wholehearted endorsement of this programme and I suspect the Chief Constable is thinking he could do a great deal more with that money.
At the outset this does not sound like an idea that is too far off the scale, however questions do naturally arise from such a proposal.
Surely the supply of a synthetic substitute for heroin should come from the NHS and not the Police? The actual choice of which individual receives these ‘drugs’ would surely need careful and clearly laid out examination, conducted with the assistance of health care specialists and should not be based on their individual proliferation of crimes committed.
When the Police force start paying from their budget for drugs for heroin addicts as a crime prevention methodology one is given to a natural incredulity. One could argue that the Police force should pay for the insurance for those people who regularly drive a motor car on the road without said insurance. Why do the Police not supply new drivers venturing out onto the roads with dash-cams in order that they learn from their mistakes and therefore hopefully reduce the amount of accidents, or in fact why not give every road user a dash-cam!
You will be reading this and thinking I am stretching this too fat but is it such a stretch? The police prevent and detect crime, they bring alleged perpetrators of crime to the courts and hand them over to the legal system, job done. They cannot surely get involved in deciding who is a prolific criminal due to an addiction of heroin, then pay for and put them on a programme of synthetic drugs in the hope that they will stop offending to furnish the habit and pay for it. The modern day copper is neither qualified, nor is it in their remit to make such judgements. The police are under so much stress and strain from budget cuts, reductions in numbers of serving officers and their back room support staff, they have enough to do without also stepping in as health care workers.
It is my opinion that this is a headline grabbing policy, resurrected from six years ago by a commissioner looking for a quick fix social policy which takes his force out of their job description and, I would suspect as an ex police officer, most certainly out of their comfort zone.
The Durham Police Force has been reported as one of the best, if not THE best in the country. As someone who lives next door in the Cleveland police force area, highlighted as one of the worst in the country (corruption, intimidation, misuse of terror laws, resignations, inquiries, a new Acting CC every couple of years), I can’t wait for the day we’re merged with the Durham Constabulary. This has been suggested several times and it’s about time it happened. Maybe the Cleveland PCC (Labour) is not keen because he’d lose his post and salary.
It’s very easy to criticise Durham’s attempt to reduce crime committed by long-term heroin addicts, but it won’t be ordinary bobbies who are involved in the scheme, but selected police and medical staff qualified to assess its suitability for individuals. The scheme applies to repeat offenders who will not or cannot come off heroin and have to find the money for it every day, beg, steal or borrow. Medical staff manage the prescriptions, issue clean needles and supervise the condition of the patients. Because ‘patients’ is what they are, addiction being a physiological problem, not a criminal one. Crime, including dealing, is committed by addicts purely to get enough stuff to get them through the next 24 hours, not as a lifestyle or career choice. Yes, it was a stupid choice to take it in the first place, but we all make the wrong choice at some stage in our lives. Who among us would not like to go back to some point in our life and choose a different path if we could?
Once the addict is living a more regular life, there are programmes available for them to reduce, manage or even end their dependency.
The cost of providing the heroin is offset by the savings made by achieving crime reduction.
Durham Police are showing the way to break the futile and endless cycle of the failed ‘war on drugs’ approach. Eventually, other forces will follow suit and it will become the norm.
Mr Hogg is quoted as saying “it really is a very sensible approach which will help them and reduce crime”.
Between the Home Office and the Police they have promoted this mantra for at least 20 years…..’It will reduce crime!’. They effectively mean in reality ‘Hey…..lets no longer make it a crime…and then it reduces the crime figures’. We know they reduce the civil service by privatising them, give them the same jobs at the same cost (at least!)to the tax-payer but the government then proclaim’s they have ‘reduced’ the civil service. But for the Police to be seen as pushers, drug barons, become what they ought to be protecting society from? So following the logic through we can reduce the murder crime rate by either caling it something else or simply no longer make it a crime can we?…..election promise kept! The ‘reduction’ in drugs addiction (and I do not mean on individuals…I mean on community environments which blight a whole area causing people afraid to walk about freely or take pleasure in their locality instead and wish to get out of it)…we know is ‘managed’ in this way. I doubt any statistics will be kept that identifies re-offendng by those given drug substitutes by the police.I note it is not Methodone…..largely now discredited as a ‘weaning off’ drug. They will tell you anything rather than try the obvious…..to prohibit wholesale their use. Since the 1960’s (when usage increased) there have been too many ‘intellectuals’ ready to promote the notion ‘everyone does it’. Around them maybe, but the vast majority of decent and well-mannered / ordered people do not want their lives polluted by such mind-bending threats to them as individuals, families or neighbours. It is about time the police looked at the ‘rights and wrongs’ instead of their own statistical conveniances. Gradually a change has overcome the way we lead our lives……’we’ are having gaols built for ‘us’ to live in instead of criminals. ‘We want our country back’ means more than just leaving the EU.
Why are the police breaking the law themselves as it is an offence to provide drugs to addicts. Who re-wrote the legislation? Just as the police are deciding what crimes to bother with and ignore others since when did they have legislative powers?
Most police forces should be disbanded and the top officers sacked along with the Police & Crime commissioners. The police are no longer capable of policing and should be reformed with more local small forces in the towns & concentration on crime and detection and cease to be a social service / medical service.
The Trump Effect on Leftist Journalists.
For the first time that I can remember a member of the leftist PC state-employed journalistic elite went into the east side of Oslo to see what was happening there. Immigrants of what they term “non-western-origin” are the majority there. The majority of these are unemployed and living on welfare. The majority of their children drop out of school and do not complete an education. The police seldom visit these areas, and as one of the criminals that were interviewed said “we have our own laws here and the gangs are the enforcers”. Children as young as 10 sell narcotics and 15 year olds carry loaded pistols. Gang members are armed with every concievable weapon. Violence, vandalism, robbery and rape are the norm, and most of the victims are Norwegian. Norwegian girls are fair game as immigrant fathers tend to come at them with knives if their daughter is dishonoured. The only Norwegian interviewed was a leftist politician, the rest were masked gang members.
The conclusion of the journalist and his staff is; that more has to be done to ensure integration, to help them get jobs and not drop out of school. The glaringly obvious conclusion should have been, and is, that these non-western-immigrants are an economic and cultural burden. That most of them cannot be integrated, and that they are responsible for most of the crime. The solution is not more integration effort and expense, but to develope repatriation schemes that enable these undesirables to be returned to their homelands.
Plain stupidity. I’m not against them being given some assistance to escape their addiction but the police need to stick to their business of arresting criminals, something which they do not seem particularly good at especially when the perpetrators are not native Brits.
I can see a state run (NHS) drug centre for daily use/ and therapy if required, but not in the hands of the police.
But it does seem like we are running a parallel society,next it will be the issue of mini human dolls for those with paedophile tendencies.
There are now appearing brothels with lifelike sex dolls which will become even more lifelike. However bizarre this is it could save a lot of misery and gangsterism.