Retsudvalget 2017-18
REU Alm.del Bilag 77
Offentligt
Police are really good at catching drug dealers. We will catch them in good numbers,
with every passing week, if that is our directive and when the resources are
provided. But we never reduce the size of the market, only change the shape of it.
In the UK, the government estimates there are 300,000 illicit cannabis factories on
our small islands. That’s more than two for every serving police officer. There will still
be the same number of factories next month, despite doors being smashed in to find
them on an almost daily basis. The continued targeting of cannabis is justified by
some within the police by saying that we must “disrupt” Organised Crime. Note the
use of the word disrupt, as police accept that it disruption, not reduction that is
happening.
I used to work undercover. Many years I have spent infiltrating Organised Crime
Groups in inner cities. In one long term operation, after four and a half months I
managed to get an introduction to a lieutenant of a Cartel leader. The Cartel was run
by Colin Gunn, a notorious Nottingham gangster. I’d been interrogated with a knife
pressed into my groin, but managed to convince him to accept me, getting closer to
my goal. It was a tense time, Colin Gunn was letting it be known on the streets that if
he caught an undercover cop he would be tortured to death.
The next day, two of my back up team became ill. I had two police officers to meet
who would replace them on my support team. I met the first one, shook his hand, no
problem. The second one instantly
made me suspicious, his body language wasn’t
right. I insisted to the senior officer overseeing the operation that he be excluded, I
did not want him knowing what I was doing. I was probably considered a Diva, but
my wishes were agreed to, he was excluded
When the Cartel was eventually brought down a year later, it turned out my instincts
probably saved my life. The man I had taken exception to, it turned out, was an
employee of that Gang. He had been recruited as a “clean skin”, someone with no
previous convictions or negative intelligence, to join the police. He was paid £2000 a
month on top of his police wages, plus bonuses for good information. He had been in
the police for seven years when I met him. Intelligence suggests he provided
information that led to murders.
When debriefing the problem of this spy with senior covert police, the attitude was
universally accepting of this event. “of course this happens”, I was told, “
with this
much money involved, how can it not happen?”
It is accepted that this corruption is
in our system because of the vast sums of money involved. Let me make this clear,
the only form of criminality that can pay for this corruption is from the illicit drugs
market.
It is not just the value in the market that causes the corruption, it is how policing
changes the shape of that market. Police more often catch the low hanging fruit than
the kingpins, so over time the successful groups get bigger, taking advantage of
 REU, Alm.del - 2017-18 - Bilag 77: Præsentationer og talepapirer fra Retsudvalgets høring den 25. oktober 2017 om fordele og ulemper ved legalisering eller afkriminalisering af cannabis
gaps in the market provided by policing. Often gangsters use police to take out
rivals. This monopolisation concentrates wealth, making corruption easier.
When a potential drugs informant is in a cell, deciding that he cannot face a long jail
term, he considers who he can grass up, who he can inform on. He asks himself,
who am I least scared of? Fear has become the commodity within drugs policing.
I have seen tangibly how tactics that I have used have caused organised crime to
become more violent. The most successful gangster is the most intimidating.
Whilst undercover in the city of Leicester, I met a young man called Abe. When I met
him, he was a cheeky, even likeable 17 year old, I was buying from him weights of
heroin. Six months later he was an absolutely terrifying 18 year old. He had had to
learn to be violent as part of his team ethos. The people he was dealing for insisted
on the aggression to make it hard for undercover cops, and to terrify would-be
informants. In order to thrive in the illicit drugs market our young have to learn to be
intimidating. It’s
a Darwinian situation, the scariest thrive. Successful drugs policing
speeds up this process.
The largest drugs market by far is that of cannabis. Teenagers are recruited by
organised crime from that market. Children in the UK cannot buy alcohol from
licensed premises, we are good at regulation. Over half of UK teenagers have easy
access to cannabis. This is now a child protection issue. Regulating adult use will
protect our children from the drug but also protect them from the corrupting influence
of Organised Crime.
I have spoken this year in many countries. Sometimes people say that their country
is special, and not corrupt like the UK. No State is immune. I have described to you
the inevitable rules of prohibition.
My organisation LEAP is represented all over the world, and growing rapidly. We are
law enforcement professionals who have seen the cost of this failed drug war. We
will soon be established in Norway under the name LEAP Scandinavia, for there is
an invitation across the region to join them.
LEAP started in the USA, which is apt, as it is the USA that pushed their moralising
agenda onto the rest of the world. American drug policy was always more about who
was perceived to be using a drug rather than about the harms. It’s time to cast aside
a policy based on moral views and adopt one based on evidence. Drug policy needs
to be about the protection of our young, and the rights of adults. It needs to be about
health, but also about security. The first step is the regulation of the cannabis market
for adult use.