TRIGGERnometry - May 26, 2022


Undercover Cop： ＂Drug Policing Makes Things Worse＂

Topics
corruption in policing and drug markets
Hosted by
Francis Foster Konstantin Kisin
Mentioned
Stephen Lawrence Colin Quinn Nottingham Constantine Kissin Peter Hitchens Frank Matthews Neri Woods Nottinghamshire
Steven Woolfe： ＂Immigration is Out of Control Cancelled by Woke Church of England - Calvin Robinson

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 4 minutes

Words per minute

175.49

Word count

11,265

Sentence count

—

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Toxicity

27

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Neil Woods is a former police officer who spent 14 years working undercover in the UK catching drug dealers. He now campaigns for an evidence-based policy to tackle the problem of drugs and corruption within the UK police force. In this episode, he tells us about his experience of working undercover and the lessons he learned about dealing drugs, corruption and the dangers of covert policing.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I worked undercover for about for just less than 14 years so I used to catch drug dealers for a
00:00:05.420 living essentially and over that space of time I realized that everything that I was doing was not
00:00:14.380 only futile because futility would be bad enough but it actually was causing immense harm not only
00:00:20.160 to individuals who were vulnerable people who needed help but also it was actively increasing
00:00:25.220 the levels of crime in particular violent crime in our society
00:00:29.020 hello and welcome to Trigonometry I'm Francis Foster I'm Constantine Kissin and this is a show for you
00:00:41.820 if you want honest conversations with fascinating people our fantastic guest today is a former
00:00:48.220 undercover police officer here in the UK Neil Woods welcome to Trigonometry thank you it's great to
00:00:53.740 have you on the show we've got so much to talk with you about we're going to talk about drugs we're
00:00:57.620 going to talk about corruption and the police force we'll talk about lots of things before we do for
00:01:02.100 those people in our audience watching and listening who don't know who you are what is your story who
00:01:06.220 are you how are you where you are how are you sitting here talking to us uh well I am a former police
00:01:12.180 officer former undercover police officer uh and I worked undercover for about for just less than 14
00:01:18.060 years um and I used to almost entirely investigate uh drugs offenses so I used to catch drug dealers for
00:01:26.300 a living essentially and over that space of time I realized that everything that I was doing was not
00:01:35.360 only futile because futility would be bad enough but it actually was causing immense harm not only to
00:01:41.320 individuals who are vulnerable people who needed help but also it was actively increasing the levels of
00:01:46.960 crime in particular violent crime in our society and like many police officers like me around the
00:01:54.860 world uh we I now campaign as part of an international movement for an evidence-based drug policy to take
00:02:02.100 the power away from organized crime and go for it well all I was going to say is uh before we get into
00:02:08.500 talking about policy and all of that just talk to us through the process of what you actually used to do
00:02:14.600 yeah I used to uh travel from one inner city area to another um and I would work undercover in those
00:02:22.780 areas for around six or seven months and I would essentially pretend to be a problematic drug consumer
00:02:31.360 I would network amongst people like that uh people who lived in squats and homeless and street people 0.99
00:02:37.120 and I would get them to introduce me up the chain to the local drug dealers and then
00:02:43.960 buy increasingly large amounts network with the sort of regional controllers to see how far up the ladder
00:02:50.440 I could get and infiltrate those gangs to gather evidence of conspiracy and then they would all get
00:02:57.380 arrested at the the culmination of that operation um so surely if I'm a normal person listening to this
00:03:05.220 I'm going well you you've done a smashing job you've come along you've outed a great drug gang they all
00:03:10.040 get arrested they all get locked up isn't that brilliant for protecting the community from the
00:03:14.400 evil of drugs well you I used to believe so I used to think you know this is this is great I'm so
00:03:21.100 privileged to be a part of the police who go after the most dangerous people in our society
00:03:25.540 but the reality is that whilst the police are very very good at catching drug dealers and they are
00:03:33.100 really good at it if you gave them twice the resources and told them to catch twice as many
00:03:38.140 than they would but that's part of the problem that's actually a significant part of the problem
00:03:44.220 because the police never reduce the size of the market but they do change the shape of it
00:03:50.100 and if you aggressive if you police it more aggressively then you change it more aggressively
00:03:56.660 and what it means is that perpetually it gets more violent because you create a darwinian situation on
00:04:02.580 the streets of our nation and around the world where the most ruthless and violent criminals are the
00:04:07.700 ones that are left behind and successful drugs policing sharpens the sword of organized crime
00:04:15.020 and nothing sharpens it as much as covert policing like the kind of thing that I used to do but it took me a
00:04:21.080 long time to realize that you know I had to I had to face up to the evidence before my eyes uh and it's
00:04:28.840 odd you know when you're really wrapped up in that world of covert policing the intensity of it
00:04:33.500 you are resistant to that evidence you know you you're so wrapped up you you've got to have the
00:04:40.300 drive and believe in what you're doing um and and to be honest and look around and be honest about
00:04:46.740 the impact of it that that that took time for me I was a bit slow was there a single moment that
00:04:53.180 sparked an epiphany in you where you thought hang on a second I'm doing more harm than good here
00:04:58.940 there was a lot to be honest because I was resistant to it and there's probably three key ones
00:05:05.560 do you want me to run through them but those briefly okay so the I suppose the first one was uh
00:05:11.000 well one of the first was in Nottinghamshire and I'd I just sort of worked out that I really needed
00:05:20.020 to network amongst the homeless people the people who were really struggling with life so I'd I was
00:05:25.520 learning to dress down and be really filthy clothes disgusting clothes and I even developed a
00:05:32.360 technique that at the end of the day I would time take my clothes off and tie them up in a plastic bag
00:05:36.540 and put them in a warm place overnight so they'd really smell the next day which my backup team used
00:05:41.480 to love as you can imagine in fact they loved it so much they would they would they were driving me
00:05:46.400 to to this to the plot uh the place where I was working with the day um to drop me off and they 1.00
00:05:52.220 were driving me with the windows wound down and their heads out the window shouting you dirty bastard 0.99
00:05:57.100 which you know was nice but um I could see the point I was I was a mess I looked a mess smelt a mess 0.99
00:06:03.960 anyway they dropped me off and I started walking to meet this heroin dealer that I'd been buying
00:06:08.500 weights of heroin off for for quite a while and as I'm walking along it's it's where the
00:06:13.740 red light area used to be in Nottingham um near where the goose goose fair is and and it's a long
00:06:20.340 bendy road and as I'm walking on this road I hear this this voice it said sex for sale
00:06:26.060 and I thought well I know this is Nottingham but at half past one in the afternoon that's quite 0.96
00:06:31.900 forward and I kept walking and again I heard sex for sale I didn't see her then I heard again sex 1.00
00:06:39.220 for sale and then as the road straightened up I saw her as I'm walking towards her she looked me up 0.98
00:06:44.740 and down obviously the state of me she looked me up and down and said cheap sex for sale well 1.00
00:06:52.180 I walked past I didn't think anything more of it and I went to buy the heroin from the dealer 0.86
00:06:58.800 um and then I did an evidence drop and then I went to buy some crack cocaine and then at the end of the
00:07:05.560 day I did a debrief because what you do you sit around with the team you you evidence the you know
00:07:09.980 you go through the evidence uh system you tell intel everyone tell the whole team needs to know what's 0.90
00:07:17.620 going on in other words and I told them about this woman offering me cheap sex and they all laughed
00:07:22.020 and whenever I've had a big audience in front of me or a group of people they've always laughed
00:07:26.540 and I trained later undercover cops later and everyone laughs but when I look back on that day
00:07:33.320 uh if I can close my eyes and I've got no idea what the heroin deal looks like it's just one more
00:07:38.600 dealer in an endless endless stream of dealers but I can picture her completely she was tall slim
00:07:45.000 and she wasn't a day over 21 and she was clutching a can of special brew and she was clutching that
00:07:51.540 special brew because she was trying to fend off for withdrawal from heroin which is what took her 0.92
00:07:56.200 that withdrawal is what took her to the streets of Nottingham to offer me cheap sex and it sort of
00:08:05.360 haunted me that night because I represented all of the resources of the state there was a lot of
00:08:12.500 resources into me all my backup team and and I walked right past her there was no other resources 0.73
00:08:20.040 there to help her and she clearly needed help and that sort of I suppose it was one of the first clues
00:08:26.480 to me that something really wasn't right here because there's always another dealer and theoretically
00:08:34.400 the way that cops talked at the time theoretically what I was doing was to protect her was to stop
00:08:42.340 these evil drugs getting onto the streets and corrupting people like her that's the theory isn't it 1.00
00:08:46.680 and yet she was there on the streets because she's got no no legal protection 1.00
00:08:55.180 so that was one thing and another thing was um what what I learned was that in order to get get people
00:09:07.420 to do what I want I have to manipulate them and so I would always seek out the most vulnerable people
00:09:12.380 because they're the easiest to manipulate and if that seems ruthless well of course it's ruthless
00:09:18.660 that is the nature of undercover drugs policing it's bloody ruthless um and so one guy I I manipulated
00:09:28.800 in Nottingham a guy called Cammy um I mean I got really friendly with him I wooed him you know
00:09:33.540 and I wooed him because he was very useful to me because he was on the periphery
00:09:37.660 the very periphery of an organization called the Bestwood Cartel he was a user dealer for them
00:09:43.580 and um how did you woo him well I spent time with him but most importantly I used empathy
00:09:50.800 I listened to him and you know I heard about his problematic childhood abusive father that kind of
00:09:59.220 thing and I just spent time listening but also I had some fun with him I went shoplifting with him
00:10:03.260 which was which was great fun no seriously well you know if you know you've got to get out of
00:10:09.300 jail card it's great especially if you're acting a pair you know take turns and be in lookout that
00:10:14.540 kind of thing anyway um I so I spent a lot of time with him and you know that was another very
00:10:20.940 successful operation I think there was 56 people arrested a few decent gangsters uh but the thing
00:10:26.780 but the trouble is he was arrested as well and he was committing offenses on bail that I was gathering
00:10:30.820 evidence against him for while I was being friendly with him and when he was in police custody
00:10:35.800 he ended up being on minute to minute watch suicide watch uh and as he told the interviewing officers
00:10:43.960 the reason for that is that this was the last straw for him it was the last it was the biggest blow for
00:10:50.260 him because he thought he'd finally found a friend he could talk to he'd never had that before
00:10:53.980 and that's what made him suicidal so therein lies the ruthlessness really um and don't you know
00:11:03.560 that hit me like a ton of bricks and that it was just emotionally disturbing to me
00:11:07.520 and then I suppose that the real defining moment but I still went into it though I still carried on
00:11:16.020 because I was persuaded to do it because it was pitched to me that look these next gangsters
00:11:23.740 they're even worse than the last lot we need you to catch them and by this time I'd become a sort of
00:11:29.440 I suppose a troubleshooter so that because I'd had some success I got the reputation and that meant
00:11:36.580 that I got the more difficult jobs and the job the next job I did the Burger Bar boys
00:11:42.940 they had two other other undercover cops tried to get close to them and they hadn't managed it
00:11:49.500 so they persuaded me to to have a go and that's why I went back into the work
00:11:53.760 but for that operation I mean I almost got I was convinced I was going to die on several
00:12:02.440 several times in that operation I was stripped at gunpoint I was assaulted um it was a every
00:12:12.180 single day of the operation in the company of the Burger Bar boys when I was with them I always felt
00:12:18.880 that there was a potential imminent violence every single day but at the end of the seven months
00:12:25.360 I got evidence against 96 people the six main gangsters and 90 other people all the sex workers
00:12:32.240 that they were employing runners or all these people and I knew there was actually no one else
00:12:37.200 to catch because there were no new phone numbers that I hadn't already got no people mentioned that
00:12:41.760 I hadn't already met so I thought wow this is just going to wipe the place clean this is extraordinary
00:12:48.180 and there were cops brought in hundreds of cops brought in five different counties provided help
00:12:53.520 for this and so I thought this is going to be a dramatic effect anyway two weeks afterwards or
00:13:00.180 sometime after the event the intel officer spoke to me who was tasked with keeping his ear to the ground
00:13:07.220 just to see the impact of the operation and he said to me yep we managed to interrupt the heroin and drug
00:13:13.920 heroin and crack cocaine supply in Northampton for a full two hours
00:13:17.840 seven months of work 96 people arrested all of that trauma that still scars me to this day
00:13:27.520 from that event from that operation to interrupt it for just two hours that's not even enough time
00:13:33.860 for someone to rattle from heroin
00:13:35.680 hey Francis have you decided what to get your dad for father's day same thing as always a couple of
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00:14:08.960 great idea he can
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00:15:05.280 you know it it shouldn't have shocked me because i've been observing this kind of thing
00:15:10.960 for years these doubts have been creeping in but that was a very stark
00:15:14.960 piece of reality that two hours before the new phone number and someone been able to deliver just
00:15:20.320 like that now i don't know for certain that the burger bar boys infamous rivals the johnson crew
00:15:27.280 were the people who took up that opportunity that we'd created for them but you can sort of picture
00:15:31.280 the scene can't you the rival gang they're all sat around maybe having a smoke one of them comes in
00:15:36.240 and says wow boys put the call in we're gonna make a fortune guess what the cops have done for us
00:15:41.920 they've locked up the burger bar boys wow and they'll be celebrated and that's the reality
00:15:47.760 that wherever and this is at every level at every level from the streets of the uk
00:15:52.000 to to transnational organized crime does if you if you if you catch someone you're always making
00:15:59.040 someone else happy because the market never shrinks and the the really grim irony actually
00:16:07.600 for the burger bar boys arrest if it was the johnson crew who took up that opportunity and bought a load
00:16:12.960 more drugs and sold them you know for the next few weeks and months all the drugs that were caught
00:16:20.160 that were found with the burger bar boys the guy that supplied them in the next rung up the ladder
00:16:26.240 get to supply them twice because he supplies the opposition as well
00:16:30.000 so he's he's really happy because he sold the same markets drugs twice
00:16:33.360 this is the reality people need to understand so and that is such i mean it's depressing really
00:16:43.280 because what it's showing people and what it's demonstrating is that you're never going to get
00:16:48.640 rid of demands there's always going to be a demand for these type of hard drugs so that being the case
00:16:54.960 what should we do now well we have to take control because it's out of control at the moment we have
00:17:00.960 to take control by legally regulating the market you know these these worst elements in our society are
00:17:06.240 only are only empowered because we've given this given them this tremendous power this this huge
00:17:12.240 financial benefit of the illegal drugs trade we've created this problem through drug prohibition we've
00:17:17.920 created this problem by banning the drugs so we have to take control we have to regulate the products
00:17:23.520 now people you know people get scared of that idea because it's normally presented as we need to
00:17:29.440 legalize and this one word it's a scary word isn't it it conjures all sorts of images like uncertainty
00:17:36.240 and maybe a free-for-all but you need to break it down into actual policy chunks about what that means
00:17:42.640 individual policies because it's not a free-for-all the free-for-all is now it's the wild west now this is
00:17:51.280 about taking control back so for example heroin that's the easiest one to regulate we wouldn't even need
00:17:58.960 a change in the law we just go back to the british system and the british system is um is the way we
00:18:05.760 used to do it in the uk that if someone had a problem with drugs if they found themselves addicted
00:18:11.920 to heroin or cocaine they would go to the doctor and they'd get help rational pragmatic help and what
00:18:20.640 that would mean is that they would get a prescription from the doctor just a pragmatic medical response to
00:18:26.960 an unfortunate medical condition and we had the british system since the 1920s right up until the
00:18:32.800 end of the 1960s it was it was stopped by the diplomatic pressure of the united states
00:18:39.120 but at the end of the british system in the 1960s there was only 1046 heroin consumers in the uk and the
00:18:47.360 number was falling within 20 years of the british system ending we had 300 000 and there's a very
00:18:56.080 clear cause and effect there that the market was given to organized crime suddenly there was a big
00:19:01.120 financial incentive for people to make a huge amount of money from it and organized crime have long been
00:19:07.200 good at exploiting uh people particularly where there is poverty and inequality but also where people are
00:19:15.600 traumatized because and i i found this out actually by using my empathy and listening to people over the
00:19:24.400 years that i worked undercover i refer to it now as weaponizing empathy um but but i did learn a lot and i
00:19:32.240 learned that almost all of the people who are using heroin and crack cocaine almost all of these people are self-medicating for
00:19:44.240 trauma and most of it is childhood trauma sexual abuse physical abuse and neglect and but of course now now
00:19:54.240 now that i'm an activist now i read the academic papers on these topics and the academic papers also
00:20:03.600 backed that up that at least two-thirds of problematic heroin and crack cocaine consumers are self-medicating
00:20:10.320 for these things and organized crime exploit these people and until we banned those drugs organized crime
00:20:20.800 couldn't exploit those people so we leave them to the mercy of organized crime rather than taking care of them 0.99
00:20:26.320 as an as a society which is a just it's just disgusting really when you when you think about it
00:20:33.920 it's an argument that makes a lot of sense when we sit down and have this conversation in this way
00:20:40.000 and i know that you deal with politicians and you know you you interact with people who who have the power to change this
00:20:47.360 what do they say to you to to these arguments well i mean it depends who it is um and it's important to
00:20:54.640 to observe i think when talking about politicians and their views that politicians respond to what they
00:21:02.320 perceive the public believe you know as tony ben famously said politicians are either signposts or
00:21:08.560 weather vanes which is a rather cynical way of saying that because i have no problem with politicians being
00:21:14.480 politicians you know i've no problem with them uh behaving the way that they want their constituents
00:21:20.160 them to behave it's just that's just politics but they're a little out of touch at the moment the
00:21:27.120 public are ahead of them but sorry to answer your question uh many of them will just well most of them
00:21:36.000 don't understand the issue that's the most important thing to say they don't understand the issue or even
00:21:40.240 some conservative politicians but they just they just they just don't i mean you know the the the
00:21:46.560 the daftest statements come out of so many politicians of right across the political spectrum
00:21:52.560 they will say that drugs cause these harms and what they're saying they're evidencing that drug 0.79
00:21:58.480 prohibition causes these harms and it's a it doesn't take much explanation to get it no well you just did
00:22:04.880 it in 10 minutes yeah exactly but we have to have the opportunity to be able to talk to them which
00:22:09.760 is why i'm always very grateful for interviews and conversations like this because i can say to an
00:22:15.680 audience if you contact your mp they will listen to you if you email your mp they will listen to you
00:22:21.920 they all tell me that that they sit up and take notice if they if they have an email three times on the
00:22:27.840 same topic they're sitting up and taking notice of it but um but there are you know there's a there's
00:22:34.800 a variety of views but i have to say that the growing support amongst politicians for drug law reform
00:22:41.920 is a is across the political spectrum it doesn't sit any particular place it's not of the left and
00:22:47.360 it's not of the right it's scattered across the whole political spectrum which is encouraging and
00:22:51.840 it's good and it's the way it should be neil that is good but the question i asked you was really
00:22:55.760 trying to get at why hasn't happened yet if you're right and if what you're saying is correct and i'm
00:23:01.600 sure it is why have we not had drug policy reform yet right i love that question because there's an
00:23:09.600 aspect of this that i'm working on very hard at the moment now there's a there's a few answers to that
00:23:14.080 one is that the press and the media have misrepresented drugs and drug policy and the results of it
00:23:19.280 for decades journalists media gurus can talk whatever shit they want about drugs because 0.76
00:23:27.040 they know they can get away with it they don't have to evidence it and they do make up a load of 0.99
00:23:30.800 shit about it that's one reason politicians spouting moralistic rubbish is another problem but the biggest 0.97
00:23:39.040 problem and i've come to believe this the biggest problem is what the police say now this is not the 0.99
00:23:46.080 fault of the police i have to have to stress because the the pub the police have a duty to inform the
00:23:52.800 public of what they do they also have a duty to maintain public confidence so when the police do a
00:24:01.840 series of arrests or they seize a load of drugs then they present this to the public in the news or on
00:24:08.720 social media as a success and they do this increasingly actually on social they're getting
00:24:15.120 more sophisticated at doing this on social media so the police are constantly bombarding the images to
00:24:21.600 the public of big seizures of cocaine big cannabis factories all the time and this is like
00:24:31.520 powerful marketing these are the same images repeated over and over it's either the drug seizures
00:24:38.640 or it's the rows of mug shots of a gang that's been caught they're constantly repeated to the public
00:24:44.000 and the message that the public gets is that well for one they're reminded there's something to be scared
00:24:49.680 of and second they're reassured that the police are doing something look at that what they've done look
00:24:55.920 all the drugs they've caught and they're reassured so the public are told essentially that the current
00:25:02.560 policy works but it's dishonest it's not true and the police know this from their own criminal
00:25:10.480 databases their own criminal intelligence that actually more often than not drugs policing increases
00:25:17.360 crime in an area because if you create a gap in the market then two or more people will fight over
00:25:22.880 that gap and violence goes up happens time and time again police know this but they're not telling the
00:25:29.120 public that are they they're not telling the public that this will not prevent anybody from getting
00:25:34.640 hold of their drugs it's not even going to put the price up so it's making no difference at all
00:25:39.840 but it's not the way it's presented to the public now you have to see this in comparison with with
00:25:44.480 with conventional crime because if police arrest the burglar burglaries will go down because there
00:25:51.280 are a limited number of people who will commit a burglary so that is a positive provable activity
00:25:59.360 drugs policing does not reduce crime but the police are constantly telling the public that it is
00:26:08.320 so that i think is the biggest impediment to the growth of the social movement because
00:26:15.360 like any social justice issue in history change with drug policy will come through the growth of
00:26:22.240 the social movement rather than political leadership same as any social movement whether it's gender
00:26:28.880 equality the illegality of homosexuality whatever it is comes from social movement and what the police
00:26:36.320 are constantly daily telling the public is slowing down that movement which is why
00:26:41.280 is one of the reasons why leap my organization is so important because it falls on us really we are
00:26:48.560 duty-bound to challenge those narratives and when we were talking with carl hart about this he made such
00:26:55.520 a good point which is we've been in the the messages and the narratives that we've been given from
00:27:02.240 mainstream media from movies from books they're so infantile you know the junkie and in the moment i say that
00:27:09.280 i say that word we can all picture that particular person in our heads but it's a two-dimensional
00:27:15.120 character and like you said it doesn't address the fact that this is obviously someone deeply traumatized
00:27:20.960 deeply damaged using drugs to just be able to cope and function throughout life not really function
00:27:27.360 either just exist yeah exactly and it's dehumanizing isn't it yeah it's it's always dehumanizing uh language
00:27:34.240 different regions around the uk have their favorites you know uh bag rat is one of my most detested ones
00:27:41.600 but you know i say it just so that people can be aware of just how dehumanizing it can be
00:27:46.720 and carl's right i mean i love carl his angle on this is on that topic is is very good um
00:27:54.160 i've lost my thread no it's so it's fine we were talking about how mainstream media uh films dehumanize
00:28:04.400 people who take drugs and what they do is it's essentially infantilize a very complex discussion
00:28:09.760 conversation yeah exactly and i i mean there's so many examples i could give you but one that sticks
00:28:14.320 in my head is there's a there was a young woman called uma who i spoke to i got to know quite well
00:28:18.880 and she she was amazing she was one of the most generous people i've ever met um and this is very
00:28:25.920 common amongst problematic heroin users actually they're really really generous and i i because
00:28:30.800 i'd had some people being suspicious of me having money i play i decided to play rattling one day
00:28:35.760 just pretend to be rattling withdrawing and so i wandered around in the morning you know
00:28:42.880 obviously rattling and holding my that's the way i was holding myself and uma came over to me
00:28:48.480 and says hey mate are you hanging out i says yeah yeah but i'll be all right when i get some money
00:28:54.160 and she just pulled the fiber out of the pocket says there you go mate and i says well aren't you
00:29:00.080 going to need that she's no i'm fine i've just had some i'll be all right for the next few hours
00:29:04.320 you need it now just absolute pure unadulterated honesty she saw the need she can give it a second
00:29:12.160 thought she was incredible but she said to me one day she said well i can stop using i do actually
00:29:19.200 after a few weeks i stopped to bring my tolerance down i stopped for a couple of weeks she says but
00:29:24.560 the problem is when i stop i become suicidal because i remember the feeling of my uncle's fingernails
00:29:32.320 when he used to sexually assault me as a little girl
00:29:37.120 so for her and like so many like her taking heroin was a pragmatic rational decision very
00:29:46.000 rational kept her alive it helped to forget heroin's actually really really good at helping
00:29:52.960 people deal with trauma really good that's why they do it that's why people do it to cope with trauma
00:30:00.160 not deal with i would say to cope with trauma right yeah that's a good correction actually to
00:30:05.680 to cope with to to to blot it out in the absence of any other care well exactly this is where i was
00:30:11.440 going to go i mean it strikes me that obviously one of the problems here is we've got people who
00:30:15.600 are not getting mental health and ways of processing trauma which are available i mean they're there
00:30:22.960 we know how to help people who've been through trauma now we've got tools to do it but they're
00:30:28.000 obviously falling through the cracks and then that's when you find ways to cope instead of
00:30:33.440 addressing the issue right ravines rather than cracks yeah yeah exactly it's it's it's an awful
00:30:40.400 thing to think about really and obviously for you to have seen that uh to seen so many people go
00:30:45.840 through that it i don't know like where where do we go from here neil where do we go yeah where do
00:30:54.800 we go well i don't know what to ask you because what you're what you're saying makes absolute 100
00:31:01.200 logical sense to me and every guest we had on particularly in recent times i've become more
00:31:06.400 bad cop when we interview people and i'm like testing their ideas and trying to find the eighth
00:31:12.640 floor in their argument and it it's a no-brainer to me yeah absolutely i mean the evidence is so
00:31:21.760 powerful the arguments are so clear this is so clearly just rationale and logic that it makes our
00:31:31.520 job as anyone involved in the drug law reform world it makes our job very easy to to explain
00:31:36.800 people we just need the platforms which is why i'm so really grateful for you to invite me to come
00:31:42.160 and speak to you because it's the platforms we need we need people out there sharing it we need
00:31:46.320 people out there discussing it with their friends and family and getting them to watch this this is
00:31:51.360 how we win we this is this is the process of the social movement growing so i really appreciate it
00:31:57.840 but where to go from here in terms of policy well i mean you know we could have over overdose
00:32:02.160 prevention sites like they have in european countries and canada no one's died in one of those anywhere
00:32:07.920 since they started anywhere in the world and yet our government is saying no there's no excuse for
00:32:12.720 that we've got the biggest drug deaths in europe scotland's biggest drug deaths in the world per
00:32:17.440 capita we need overdose prevention sites right now just it needs to be urgently happening we need to be
00:32:24.560 contacting every every one of our mps to demand it we need heroin assisted treatment which is the british
00:32:29.920 system revived it's happening already in cleveland paid for by the money from the police and crime
00:32:35.920 commissioner actually the police are paying for this which is you know the police being ahead of
00:32:40.640 the politics in this country is extraordinary really we need a legally regulated cannabis market
00:32:47.600 to protect our children because it's easier for our children to get cannabis than it is alcohol
00:32:53.280 because dealers don't ask for id do they and you know there is evidence from north america that
00:32:59.120 regulated markets protect our children better so we need to protect them but also you regulate the
00:33:04.960 cannabis markets and you're taking a huge amount of money out of the pockets of organized crime
00:33:09.360 which they always reinvest profits into corruption so we're making our society safer and more secure
00:33:16.560 this is a security issue we're making our society more secure if we do that we take that money away
00:33:21.440 from them and also from a public health perspective we don't know what's in that bag of green
00:33:27.440 that that our dealer delivers not really you know some connoisseurs might have something to say about
00:33:35.200 what i've just said but more often than not we don't so and every commodity needs to be
00:33:43.760 it needs to be regulated to protect people and you know and all the drugs in between they need to be
00:33:48.960 sold by licensed pharmacies now if you consider mdma for example
00:33:53.360 mdma is the perfect example of the drug that is not banned because it's dangerous it's dangerous
00:34:02.720 because it's banned and i'm sure that you had dave not on i would imagine he's he's he's commenting on
00:34:08.800 on this as well you know this is all of the deaths that come from mdma is because it's unregulated
00:34:14.400 is because it's not what people expected or it's a tablet which is four or five times too
00:34:19.360 too too big a dose these are regulatory issues regulate that drug and you literally save lives
00:34:26.720 mdma deaths would be virtually non-existent and also who are we to judge who is anyone to judge if
00:34:34.720 someone wants to drop an mdma pill and dance to electronic music in a field or wherever who cares
00:34:42.000 it's just there's the sort of liberty arguments don't get talked about very often but really
00:34:50.160 it's we need to have parallels with the social movement that ended the illegality of homosexuality
00:34:58.320 and it's still developing to end the prejudice because it's not for anyone to judge what other
00:35:04.960 people do with their own mind and body is it and we need to be talking in those terms and that's
00:35:10.240 that's not a popular view within the drug law reform world that because as it's pointed out to me by
00:35:16.240 some allies you can't argue about personal liberty because not enough people care about personal
00:35:21.360 liberty because they don't generally we've seen that overcome yeah exactly they just they don't care
00:35:27.200 yeah so but i still even though the evidence suggests that other arguments are stronger i always
00:35:34.720 like to mention it because it's another topic of conversation we need to get out there what right
00:35:40.880 do we have to judge anybody what they do with their own mind and body what right does anyone have well
00:35:47.760 i suppose on that one there is a counter argument i can think of which is drugs have an impact on
00:35:52.800 people beyond the person who's taking them right um so i can see the argument for that i just think
00:36:00.480 when it comes to that your explanation of why people take drugs i just think we you need a
00:36:04.640 different approach yes someone becoming a drug addict is has an impact on their family on people
00:36:09.920 around them on society it's not good but the way to deal with that is to address the cause of what's
00:36:15.280 making them take the drugs i suppose what do you think is the strongest argument against your position
00:36:22.000 strongest argument against yeah the thing you find most difficult to have to to deal with when
00:36:26.640 people if people challenge you uh about decriminalization or legalization i can't think
00:36:35.280 of a single rational strong argument to be honest i mean you know all of the opponents of drug law
00:36:42.400 reform are just batshit crazy they're just moral it's just moral judgment how can you argue with moral
00:36:47.760 judgment i mean you said you've had peter hitchens on he's just just looking at it from a moralistic lens
00:36:52.640 he wants to judge and control people he hasn't got any rational arguments at all he argues that
00:36:57.840 cannabis is behind terrorism and violence and it's not the evidence is quite clear it isn't
00:37:03.760 um so there really isn't any arguments difficult to counter honestly but i i i appreciate you
00:37:11.440 challenging that point i made then though uh and it's an important point you just made
00:37:15.120 and it prompts me to make clear that not all drug use is problematic in fact 90 of drug use is not
00:37:24.320 problematic and the 10 that is problematic it's a sliding scale so some people need more intervention
00:37:30.960 than others the important thing to note about our current drug laws about so the system of prohibition is
00:37:38.240 it makes problematic use more likely and more dangerous because people are pushed to the margins
00:37:45.920 they're criminalized so they're not able to get help so wherever you look around the world where
00:37:51.520 there is less prohibition and more harm reduction for that prop for that problematic cohort they there is
00:38:00.400 less problematic consumption so for example in portugal where they've decriminalized possession they
00:38:04.800 haven't gone the whole way and legalized uh legally regulated the market yet but they've
00:38:09.760 decriminalized possession so people who have a problem with drugs they get help so their problematic
00:38:14.960 consumption has dramatically dropped their overall consumption hasn't dropped there's still just as
00:38:20.560 many people taking drugs as there was before made no difference to that their problematic consumption
00:38:25.760 has gone down their problems with blood-borne viruses has gone down their drug deaths have dropped
00:38:31.520 they used to be the highest now they're the lowest you can't argue with that no you can't you alluded to
00:38:39.280 something that the money from drugs then went into corruption and the one thing that i wanted to talk
00:38:46.240 with you about well there's lots of things obviously this has been an incredible interview so thank you for
00:38:49.760 coming on but it's corruption within the police because it's something that i don't think we talk about
00:38:55.040 enough and i'll give you an example we all know the stephen lawrence case the racist murder of stephen
00:39:00.640 lawrence obviously awful obviously horrendous and we all talk about the racist element of it because
00:39:05.600 it played a large part but we don't also talk about the fact that the coppers involved a lot of them
00:39:11.760 were corrupt how big is a is corruption within the police force a problem and how much of it is due
00:39:20.320 to these gangs being awash with drugs and being able to buy coppers and make them corrupt 0.62
00:39:26.400 it's huge it's that the scale of corruption that's caused by drug prohibition is eye-watering
00:39:34.960 and uncomfortable now i i make lots of my former colleagues uncomfortable by saying this because
00:39:40.720 it feels like it's a bit it's a criticism of them it's not it's still a tiny minority of cops but a
00:39:45.440 tiny minority of cops can do a massive massive load of harm and it's absolutely endemic it's endemic and
00:39:52.800 impossible to defend against impossible because there's too much money involved
00:39:59.920 there is more money in the criminality of the illicit drug markets than anything any other form of
00:40:05.280 criminality anything but it's not just the money which causes the corruption it's the mechanism of
00:40:15.600 trying to police the drug markets actually causes it now bear with me i'll i'll try and i'll try and explain
00:40:21.200 this so where the police have a successful operation and they arrest say a drug dealer which controls the
00:40:28.960 heroin supply in a quarter of the city the dealer or kingpin character or gang which is more able
00:40:36.720 which is able to take up that opportunity or most able to take up that opportunity created by that
00:40:41.360 policing activity is someone who controls another quarter of the city so they expand their influence
00:40:49.120 they increase their market share which means they expand they increase their disposable income
00:40:55.840 and the police are continually changing the market like this continually and what happens is you get
00:41:02.080 people increasing their market share or you get people forming monopolies or you get people forming
00:41:07.120 cooperatives which means there's more money able to be invested in corruption and over time this mechanism
00:41:16.480 is what increases corruption and this happens at every level all over the world one of the best examples
00:41:21.760 for it is in mexico yeah there used to be 20 cartels now there's only three cartels each one of those three
00:41:28.640 cartels has a gdp if you put it in those terms bigger than most west african countries
00:41:38.320 those west african countries have been corrupted completely in the last 12 months there have been five 0.97
00:41:44.080 military coups in west africa each one of those military coups has been about the control of the
00:41:50.960 big single biggest financial asset asset for those nations and the single biggest financial asset is
00:41:57.680 the money that's made through the cocaine transit routes it's about who controls the bribes from
00:42:04.640 transnational organized crime is what's driven those military coups so countries like guinea guinea-bissau
00:42:11.600 senegal sierra leone these countries are now narco states they are not run by legitimate democratic
00:42:19.600 institutions they're run by transnational organized crime because why corrupt a customs official and the
00:42:26.240 police chief when you can afford to take over the whole government and they can afford to take over the whole
00:42:32.000 government because of decades of policing activity which has thinned them out and made the last one standing
00:42:39.040 incredibly rich this is destroying the fabric of our democracy and our security worldwide the global
00:42:48.480 initiative into trans transnational organized crime which is a body which studies international
00:42:54.320 police criminal intelligence they made a day-centered report they published a report last september which
00:43:00.480 stated that the growing power of transnational organized crime now the single biggest threat to our
00:43:05.840 security and even the the system of democracy itself and we're doing this by fighting this war
00:43:14.640 by trying to deal with police by trying to deal with drugs by policing and this happens at every level now
00:43:20.160 we feel very smug in our stable democracy in the uk very smug but the corruption is here as well and i've come
00:43:27.360 across it numerous times i once in the operation in nottingham uh we've been working very long hours and
00:43:38.880 two of my backup team went off sick in the morning i got introduced to these two new cops i'd not met before
00:43:44.960 which which unsettled me a little shook the hand of the first one no problem with him at all shook the
00:43:52.240 hand of the second one and the hairs just went up in the back of my neck you know i'd been working
00:43:56.240 undercover for months by this time and my senses were pretty fine-tuned verging on paranoia and this
00:44:03.360 guy was just wrong he was clearly wrong to me instinctively so i went to the guy running the
00:44:08.720 operation he said boss sorry don't trust this guy don't want him anywhere near it don't want him
00:44:13.200 knowing what i'm doing this is fine we'll exclude him exclude them both so they don't ask any questions
00:44:19.120 and they don't know anything about this job yet so it's fine didn't think much more of it but then
00:44:25.040 12 months later when the gangster colin gunn was brought down it turned out that that cop was an
00:44:31.040 employee of colin gunn he'd paid him to join the police his his name was charlie fletcher his details
00:44:39.040 are all over you know or on the internet he by the time i met him he'd been in the police for seven years
00:44:43.600 fucking hell and he was being paid two two thousand pounds a month on top of his police wages plus
00:44:50.800 bonuses for good information now he'd been paid to join the police in the debrief for that one of the 0.99
00:44:59.280 one senior cop said to me at the time look woodsy yeah of course this happens we know this happens
00:45:05.280 with this much money involved how can it not happen and it is accepted and understood by senior covert
00:45:11.920 police all over the country that this happens but why doesn't the public know this don't you think
00:45:17.260 the public should know this but the problem is that one of the standing directives from the home office
00:45:23.560 to chief constables is to maintain public confidence makes sense doesn't it if the if you the public lose
00:45:29.500 confidence in the police fabric of society could break down and all that but the trouble is that
00:45:34.560 means that constable chief constables are not being honest with the public and if the public knew
00:45:39.440 the extent of the corruption then i think the public would quite quickly demand change of their mps
00:45:46.660 now consider the the mechanisms that i used to work under as an undercover cop before i got before i got
00:45:52.960 loaned to a particular constabulary they would have to set up their operation as dictated by the special
00:45:59.400 operations unit would have to have an intel guy an exhibits guy uh backup and in a certain cell and they were
00:46:08.780 not and they were told they were not allowed to even communicate with their colleagues during the
00:46:13.160 whole operation they were completely separate people wouldn't know where they'd gone or what
00:46:16.920 they were doing they were told just before i got there that they were not allowed to ask me my real name
00:46:22.860 not allowed to ask me where i'm from and they would be disciplined punished if they did
00:46:28.720 so i was giving i was working with the cops using the same pseudonym as i was with the gangsters
00:46:34.460 and of course the reason for that is to try and protect me now consider this that only happens for
00:46:42.580 covert drugs operations doesn't have any other kind of policing none at all oh no apart from witness
00:46:49.280 protection which is all about drugs witnesses anyway all of it so that system in itself
00:46:57.560 is evidence of just how seriously and the extent of corruption that exists as a result of our drug
00:47:06.140 policy hey francis do you go on the internet to look at naughty stuff yeah is it stuff that you'd be
00:47:13.740 embarrassed to show your friends yeah is it stuff that would get you cancelled yeah well next time
00:47:20.020 you decide to be naughty and watch more trigonometry you need to use expressvpn it doesn't matter mate
00:47:26.300 because i use incognito mode ha it doesn't matter what mode you use or how many times you clear your
00:47:33.460 browsing history your internet service provider can still see every single website you've ever visited
00:47:40.160 that's why even when you're at home you should never go online without using expressvpn
00:47:45.440 my career is finished there there you'll have to leave trigonometry can't be helped anyway it doesn't
00:47:52.160 matter who your internet service provider is isps in the u.s can legally sell your information to ad
00:47:58.260 companies expressvpn is an app that reroutes your internet connection through their secure servers
00:48:03.880 so your isp can't see the site you visit absolutely fresh expressvpn also keeps all of your information
00:48:12.100 secure by encrypting 100 of your data with the most powerful encryption available most of the time you
00:48:19.200 won't even realize you have expressvpn on it runs seamlessly in the background and is so easy to use
00:48:25.340 all you have to do is tap one button and you're protected what am i gonna do expressvpn is available
00:48:32.320 on all your devices phones computers even your smart tv so there's no excuse for you not to be
00:48:38.520 using it go on francis do the last bit if you don't want to end up like me protect your online activity
00:48:46.020 today with a vpn rated number one by business insider visit my exclusive link expressvpn.com
00:48:56.160 slash trigger and you can get an extra three months free on a one-year package that's e-x-p-r-e-s-s vpn.com
00:49:07.360 slash trigger expressvpn.com slash trigger to learn more and neil those corrupt cops they're particularly
00:49:16.520 dangerous aren't they because i remember you saying on another interview that actually
00:49:21.500 if you know you aren't worried about former gangsters but former police officers that's
00:49:30.180 something else entirely oh god absolutely yeah i mean
00:49:33.620 for drug wars we interviewed a good friend of mine um frank matthews and he had a big problem with
00:49:41.540 corruption in the met and there's a surprise well it happens everywhere it happens everywhere but he his
00:49:48.640 problems are definitely all here well he worked here and he was a whistleblower for corrupt activity
00:49:54.640 and when he was a whistleblower he ended up being followed by an entire um entire surveillance unit
00:50:04.720 of special branch he was being surveilled by his own team and he got to the point with problems that
00:50:10.800 he was having with cops that he knew were corrupt was that he thought he was going to get killed
00:50:17.560 and he's he's one of the he's someone who's had more dealings with gangsters than probably anyone
00:50:24.180 i know uh some very high level and international organized crime figures and they've never worried
00:50:28.980 him as much as as the corrupt cops and i have to say exactly the same thing it's the corruption
00:50:34.920 and negligence within policing that's almost got me killed more more often than than not
00:50:41.120 and again you know i i i apologize to many of my colleagues which really which really
00:50:47.440 get offended by this but we all need to be honest we all need to be honest because the way to protect
00:50:54.200 our police our criminal justice system and all of other other other institutions from this
00:50:59.460 corruption is to take the power away from organized crime and legally regulate the drug markets
00:51:04.160 and until we do this corruption's only going in one direction you know people watch line of duty
00:51:09.780 okay some of the dramatic lines in it are a bit far-fetched but the substance of the corruption
00:51:16.040 is very well informed what about the wire have you seen the wire i have the wire is a masterpiece
00:51:23.480 and one of the reasons it's a masterpiece is because it's entirely based on truth one i'm my
00:51:30.740 organization the law enforcement action partnership i'm on the board of the organization in america
00:51:36.260 and one of the other board members a guy called neil franklin he used to be on the murder squad in
00:51:42.720 baltimore that's featured and he knows all of the characters it's based on based on all real people
00:51:48.480 um you know that the guy who's just died recently played the oh my little that's it oh my says that he
00:51:55.360 knows oh my devon little he says he knows the person that's based on that's absolutely accurate
00:52:00.680 he's met him he knows it yeah it's all accurate he says the only thing that was really truly fictional
00:52:05.380 was the episode hamsterdam yeah yeah but the rest of it there's real people and real events
00:52:10.540 and it's a clear message the wire isn't it you know this ain't no war war's end yeah yeah it's it
00:52:18.440 you're right it's a masterpiece uh we've got a few literally a few minutes left and it feels like
00:52:23.520 it's flown by it's been really great to chat uh can we do just a couple of like human interest
00:52:28.520 questions like you talked about particularly the last big realization that you had when you spent
00:52:35.180 seven months undercover and you felt like you might get killed every day like what was going on when
00:52:40.580 you're there in that situation why did you constantly feel at risk and all of that
00:52:45.460 well i mean the burger bar boys had really refined the the intimidation they'd really got it down to an
00:52:54.260 art form and this is this is what our drug policy does you know the most successful gangs get really
00:52:59.920 good at this and they were they were incredible the violence and threats of violence that they'd
00:53:04.320 used towards me or they'd stripped me at gunpoint uh once they took me to the edge of this the race
00:53:09.320 course what was your relationship with them like how how how did you ingratiate yourself with them
00:53:13.960 i built myself a bit of a reputation as being a good thief
00:53:18.280 um and i built a reputation i traded with a lot of the people who who handle stolen goods
00:53:24.340 you know and i could give them gifts sometimes and i was buying increasing weights from them
00:53:29.060 um and i just i just i just became one of the people they were happy to deal with directly
00:53:35.680 okay but there was i was never i was never friendly with them right so so you go to a meeting and
00:53:42.320 suddenly they strip you of gunpoint to make sure you haven't got a wire on you or something is that
00:53:45.820 right yeah and that was that was an interest that was a decision i was pleased to make because the
00:53:50.000 day before i'd got a bit uncomfortable with how they were behaving towards me and so the day after
00:53:54.140 i decided not to wear a wire and i've been wearing a camera by that point but that morning i thought
00:53:58.440 will i shall i shan't i and i decided not to mate what a good decision that was because when they got 0.98
00:54:04.040 me when they got me to the edge of that park and they said right strip you're fucking 5-0 man you're 0.98
00:54:08.900 fucking heat and one of them lifted up a t-shirt and there was a gun tucked into his tracksuit bottoms and 0.97
00:54:14.020 now it's weird the thoughts that go through your head when you've got this adrenaline flooding your 0.98
00:54:18.380 head because i looked at that gun in his tracksuit bottoms and i thought how the hell is that elastic 0.95
00:54:22.020 keeping that gun on it's a strange thing and also when he says you're fucking 5-0 man and i remember 0.98
00:54:29.820 looking at him thinking you're not old enough to have seen a wire 5-0 yeah again another just weird 0.98
00:54:34.220 things that go through your head yeah yeah and how do you keep your cool how do you keep your cool
00:54:40.320 under that kind of pressure because look we all face pressure in our jobs and yeah maybe not like
00:54:45.540 that mate imagine you will wake up in the morning i'm just here with a with a gun and my elastic going
00:54:50.180 you're 5-0 demanding you strip i mean i can imagine that part anyway but how do you deal with that how do
00:54:59.360 you deal with with that level of pressure because we talk about stressful jobs but that is something
00:55:05.340 else entirely well that's an interesting question because you know as a young man when i when i found
00:55:10.280 my first near-death experiences working undercover i was i was really pleased with myself because you
00:55:14.780 know you don't know how you're going to deal with shit like that do you you don't know yeah but i had 0.90
00:55:19.680 the advantage like some people do apparently i had the advantage that when i ever said i went that 0.96
00:55:24.260 doesn't work now god no but as a young man if when i had a surge of adrenaline i had the sensation
00:55:29.640 that time was slowing down and i had a calming feeling that i could i could think very clearly
00:55:34.300 and that i had all the time in the world to think so i could do it with complete confidence and i just
00:55:40.240 had this feeling right okay there's a problem got to think it through deal with it and i just stayed
00:55:45.500 in that sort of moment that fueled by adrenaline so to speak and you know it boosted my ego because
00:55:50.400 i'm coming away from this and my colleagues my peers are saying wow you know you're not breaking a
00:55:55.760 sweat or what look at you and that boosted my ego as a young man suited me thinking wow you know i'm
00:56:01.480 finally good at something but no one told me that that was destroying the fabric of my brain
00:56:06.500 um that these events you know you these high high intense experiences were causing me damage you know i'm
00:56:16.320 i'm diagnosed now with chronic ptsd and i i have most most days now are best are good but i have some
00:56:25.480 dark days and i i i jumped and i you know i jumped into all of those times with wild abandon and
00:56:34.980 carelessness really i had no idea that would do that to me and no one told me you know the gung-ho
00:56:41.540 culture within policing we're within drugs policing no one no one told me that that perhaps i need to
00:56:48.500 take a breath and and and look after myself the only way i looked after myself was um was with alcohol
00:56:54.640 did you find yourself almost becoming addicted to that kind of high octane lifestyle
00:57:00.440 though and yeah in the first few years um it drove me and i and i loved it i did i loved
00:57:08.820 the intellectual exercise of the lying people lying to people the manipulating people and i also love the
00:57:17.120 challenge of you know it's it's like a rapid improvement it's a rapid learning exercise we all
00:57:25.060 like to feel like we learned something and we've developed personally don't we but it's like turn
00:57:29.220 that's turning it up to 100 it's like you learn so much about yourself literally in minutes and that's a
00:57:35.000 very heady experience to be able to learn and and how you acutely learn people's body language and you
00:57:42.200 become so quickly responsive to it yeah it's very heady but by the time i was working with the
00:57:48.020 burger bar boys it was just exhausting i was i think i was already probably multiply traumatized
00:57:54.400 but i will have been and i was just piling it on top by then and neil you know again going back to
00:58:00.780 carl hart's point of the word we see the word junkie or we hear the word junkie we get an image
00:58:05.940 we get we do that exact same thing with the word gangster but you've been with these people you
00:58:13.260 you've talked with them you've spoken to them you've seen the probably the other side to them
00:58:17.060 who are these people are do they have similar personality traits or is it literally from every
00:58:23.280 part of you know the spectrum that life has to offer yeah i get in discussion with some drug policy
00:58:29.220 people i know about my use of the word gangsters uh and i do use the word consciously and i know
00:58:36.920 that it has it conjures up mixed images for different people but it's a hook for an audience so i use it
00:58:42.500 but i say gangsters and some of them are generally vicious but they're all a product of the system
00:58:48.460 they're all a product of drug drug prohibition and they would not be the way they are unless drug
00:58:52.560 prohibition but if it wasn't there they wouldn't and we need to be aware of that now i'll give you
00:58:59.440 an example there was a back in 2001 i met this kid who was a part of a gang and he was 16 when i met him
00:59:07.240 and he was a friendly kid you know i could have a laugh with him he was a nice kid good sense of
00:59:12.860 humor and then six months later he'd become a terrifying 17 year old and i'd seen him change in
00:59:20.060 that period of time and he was changing and he was learning to become casually violent and casually
00:59:25.260 and to intimidate people and whereas at the start i'd have a laugh with him by the end he'd casually
00:59:31.800 bash my head into a lamppost just to let me know his boss bang there you go as we're walking past
00:59:36.620 and i saw that change and it was a conscious effort for him to learn to be like that because that's
00:59:43.060 how his peers taught him he had to survive and he's right because if you're casually violent like
00:59:48.420 you don't get grassed up if people are scared of you you don't get grassed up if people are scared
00:59:53.180 of you people don't provide a witness statement you survive longer now i don't i'm sure now i'll
01:00:01.340 bear in mind that that quite then back to back in 2001 it was unusual for someone so young to be at
01:00:06.020 the front line of heroin and crack cocaine dealing now it's more often than not they are now they're
01:00:11.280 all the 50 000 of them now more changed brought by drug prohibition you know well done um but i'm
01:00:20.800 sure that that kid when he was 12 or 13 wasn't looking to a future thinking i'm going to be
01:00:25.140 learning how to be as violent as possible to be part of a drug dealing gang just don't believe it
01:00:29.380 this is what the current system did to him now the burger bar boys they were second and third
01:00:36.700 generation gangsters they've been brought up that way by their parents but their parents didn't have
01:00:44.140 to have been that way we're doing this to our communities we're doing this to our young men
01:00:50.400 it's changing the personalities of our young men and it plays out you see it play out with the growing
01:00:57.660 knife violence for the younger ones the next generation they've got older peers telling them
01:01:04.100 you've got to need you need a reputation because their communities have been changed by this law
01:01:10.100 and how bad are the next generation going to be unless we turn it around well neil on that happy
01:01:17.120 note we've come to the end of our listen it's been great and i know you've got stories for days so
01:01:22.460 perhaps if you're kind enough to come back at some point we can delve into a little bit more but for now
01:01:27.320 we're going to ask you a couple of questions from our local supporters that only they will get to see
01:01:32.240 but before we do that we'll wrap up the main interview here by asking you the question we always
01:01:36.220 ask at the end which is what is the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think
01:01:41.440 we really should be okay now explain the mechanism of corruption that brings us halfway halfway to this
01:01:48.220 next point that corruption means that cop 26 the great environmental meeting which was trying to turn
01:01:57.100 around the client trying to stop the climate catastrophe many countries which are the most
01:02:02.840 important countries which need to stop deforestation make pledges but they can't go carry through those
01:02:10.320 pledges because they don't control their own backyards drug dealing transnational crime does
01:02:16.760 so i mentioned west africa guinea-bissau guinea uh senegal senegal but if you but if you look at
01:02:24.700 latin america as well all of the equatorial countries governance has dissolved the governance have no say
01:02:32.320 of what goes on in the forests it cannot be stopped because drugs organized crime is too powerful
01:02:38.720 there is only two options to stop this disaster and that is to get transnational organized crime around the
01:02:45.920 table i'm sure that would be popular we want the if we want to stop the planet burning that's option
01:02:53.800 one or we take their power away from them by taking their market off them by legally regulating those
01:03:00.920 are the two choices if we want to stop the lungs of the world being cut down neil it's been an absolute
01:03:08.380 pleasure thank you so much for coming on if people want to find you online or your work where do they go
01:03:12.900 well please follow the law enforcement action partnership uh leap uk we have a website on
01:03:18.120 twitter and instagram we are at uk leap uh my twitter is at woodsy zero uh which is i know i chose it
01:03:27.980 before i knew i was going to be public but you'll find you'll find me and the book the books uh if you
01:03:33.680 want more undercover stories it's good cop bad war if you want a history of british drug policy it's drug wars
01:03:38.500 fantastic stuff neil woods thank you so much and thank you for watching and listening we're going
01:03:43.500 to do our locals questions now but thank you so much for the moment we'll see you very soon with
01:03:47.960 another brilliant episode like this one or our show all of which go out at 7 p.m uk time and for those
01:03:53.300 of you who like your trigonometry on the go it's also available as a podcast take care and see you soon 0.58
01:03:59.120 guys the government has just passed a bill which is holy shit i know 0.95