TRIGGERnometry - Undercover Cop：＂Drug Policing Makes Things Worse＂

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

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

00:05:52.220 were driving me with the windows wound down and their heads out the window shouting you dirty bastard

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

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

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

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

00:06:44.740 and down obviously the state of me she looked me up and down and said cheap sex for sale well

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

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

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

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

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

00:08:46.680 and yet she was there on the streets because she's got no no legal protection

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

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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

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

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

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

00:23:30.800 shit about it that's one reason politicians spouting moralistic rubbish is another problem but the biggest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

00:54:14.020 now it's weird the thoughts that go through your head when you've got this adrenaline flooding your

00:54:18.380 head because i looked at that gun in his tracksuit bottoms and i thought how the hell is that elastic

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

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

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

00:55:19.680 the advantage like some people do apparently i had the advantage that when i ever said i went that

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

01:03:59.120 guys the government has just passed a bill which is holy shit i know

TRIGGERnometry - May 26, 2022

Undercover Cop：＂Drug Policing Makes Things Worse＂

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