"North Wales Police chief constable Richard Brunstrom has said he will be 'campaigning hard' for drugs such as heroin to be legalised".
Police Chief Constable Brunstrom, you rock!
Thursday, 11 October 2007
Outbreak of commonsense in North Wales
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9 comments:
My word, that's possibly the first sensible thing I can remember him ever saying!
Remember this is the chap who goes catching speeding motorists for fun...
That's the contradiction:
He enforces one authoritarian law in a draconian fashion but 'campaigns hard' against a different authoritarian law.
Is it not a cause for concern that a policeman - whose job it is to enforce the laws passed by our democratically elected rulers (well that's the theory) - is campaigning for or against anything? He's a functionary not a sage. If he wants to "campaign" then he should stand for Parliament (or work for the BBC).
Umbongo, would you say the same if he were dismantling speed cameras and campaigning for an increase in the speed limit on motorways to (say) 85 mph?
It so happens that coppers and doctors are the people who know most about drugs. Not politicians, or social workers, who have a vested interest.
It so happens I support the legalisation of drugs. However, until the law changes, it is the duty of the police to enforce the law. OTOH I don't consider that stupid laws should be enforced with the assiduousness that Brunstrom enforces motoring laws in his domain. It would be surprising if a chief constable did not have an opinion on the wisdom or otherwise of the present law on drugs (or guns) but, as I said in my first comment, it is not his business to campaign for a change: he is a public servant paid to enforce the law. You are right that leaving the drug laws (or any law for that matter) to the mercy of the present crew of politicians is madness. But what's the alternative? You can't remove everything from politics.
Would like to expand on this but I've got to watch "The Bill" - my diet of rubbish for the week.
The penaltys should be stiffer for drug dealers and takers: the problem is that it is too easy to get drugs and the punishments are too lenient for those committing crimes to fund their habit.
Forced rehab and a war to destroy the poppy fields, instead of fighting, and dying, to preserve them, would be a decent start.
The laws and punishments on drugs are too liberal and have become increasingly so, thereby making the crimes seem worse.
Brunstrom is my local CC and he is an idiot and hated; NW police spends more resources fighting motorists than drug crime, and there is no profit in tackling drug crime, so Brunstrom wants to legalise the non-profit making crimes...hmmm, tractor production will rise greatly and he will be hailed a hero of the people.
Besides all that...this is very, very old news, must be a slow day for the media.
Shotgun, before you come up with knee jerk policies you have to look at FACTS, and then try and establish patterns, correlation, logic, cause and effect, costs and benefits and so on.
This "crack down" on drugs has been tested to destruction over decades, and like Prohibition before it does not work. Like sending aid to Africa, fine in principle, but it does not work. It just makes things worse.
Anyway, what business is it of yours and mine if people take heroin, smoke dope or drop E's? Legalise them, regulate them, tax them, end of. That'll halve the crime rate within a few months.
There are many reasons Brunstrom is wrong on this matter. Firstly, he is a chief copper and should not campaign on political matters. Secondly, he has a hidden agenda which isn't being exposed.
He isn't interested in the drug users, he is interested in figures.
If he can have the drugs removed from the criminal system, then he will be able to divert the figures for drug orientated crimes into a civil crime list.
Alternatively, his plan for grading drugs including tobacco and alcohol has a wiff of subtle control about it. Perhaps bylaws to be introduced to stop serving people more than 2 pints " for their own good" -
Which ever way this pans out, he is only truly interested in making making North Wales the lowest crime area in the World!
There is no way that a person with such an authoritarian attitude to motoring can be so liberal on drugs unless this or a similar hidden agenda is as play - I wait to be corrected!
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