Good Cop, Bad War

Neil Woods spent 14 years as an undercover cop in the bowels of the drug world.

His myriad stories paint a chilling and compelling picture of the futility and dangers of the war on drugs.

The Burger Boys Gang were nasty bastards. Heroin and crack was their speciality and they ensured loyalty weaponizing gang rape. Total charmers.
Neil went undercover for 7 months.
All 94 when to jail, including 6 ring leaders. Huzzah!

This interrupted the heroin and crack trade in that town for ….
2 hours!
No, It’s not a typo…2 fucking hours!!!

Imagine the cost of that operation, surveillance, cops from several counties, the courts, the prison costs and above all, the lives risked to pull off such a sting and all for 2 measly hours before another gang moves in. Cut one head off and soon, another appears.
If we are looking for a way to make the streets safer, surely there’s a better way to spend that cash.

Every photo of a police drug haul is advertising to the neighboring gang that opportunity awaits, and they always oblige, increasing their patch, their power, their reach, their profit, until they are unstoppable.
Mexico used to have 20 cartels.
Now there’s just 3 mega cartels.
Here’s Neil to explain.

The war on drugs is futile, Neil tells us.
It’s not because the cops are bad at catching perps, they are actually brilliant at it, but because policing has no impact on demand.
So what can we do?
Neil has an evidence based solution that does have an impact on that demand.

The British System.
This was a system where heroin dependents were treated as patients not criminals.
Prescription pads in place of rap sheets, they were given the heroin they needed by a doctor.
This removed the need to commit crimes for a fix and left ‘space’ for other things like education, gainful employment and family connection… a better life.
Can you guess what happened to their heroin consumption?

In 1971 we Brits fucked it with the Misuse of Drugs Act. American moral imperialism spearheaded by the stalwart of morality himself, Richard Nixon told the Brits they had to do it Uncle Sam’s way and so we brought in the US prohibition model and handed an entire industry to the criminal underworld.
At the time of the Act’s introduction, the UK had 1,046 heroin users.
20 years later it had 350,000.
Moralizing drug use sent the numbers soaring.

Meanwhile, Switzerland took the data from The British System and introduced it.
Overnight the burglary rate halved, street prostitution disappeared and overdose rates plummeted.
The cartels had no business in Switzerland and so they fucked off and took their coercion and violence with them. Drug users found the heroin they needed and that turned to the help they needed.
This was later replicated in many other countries.

Now, which version of society would you prefer?

This is a massive U-turn for me.
I thought prohibition would save my boy, Luke.
Endless data sets prove that I was blind, deaf and also totally bloody wrong.
Fear is a liar.

Neil Woods saw that his work was hurting people.
He left the police force, wrote books, founded LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) which is an international organization and now spends his life screaming from the roof tops that we follow the data. It’s all here

Neil, I salute you and I am now there, tearfully screaming right beside you.
Better late than never.