Police: we're losing war against heroin trafficking | Heroin

Police: we're losing war against heroin trafficking

Ever since the debate on the reclassification of cannabis kicked off almost a year ago to the day, the Canna Zine has made it clear why, in our opinion, the Police were so keen to see the government back-track on what has been one of their most successful policy changes in recent times; that is, the reclassification of cannabis from a class B to the lesser charge of class C. User figures are showing a downward trend, people are not struggling with a police criminal record for a simple possession charge, and everything looked rosy in the garden. Then, along comes Gordon Brown and his cronies, including Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, and drugs minister Vernon Coaker, with a big box of flies to drop in the ointment when they announced they were going against the advice of their experts, and were set to reclassify cannabis BACK to a class B drug. ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers soon came out in support of the new policy, (as they did when David Blunkett initially reclassified cannabis back in 2004), and they quickly filled up Daily Mail column inch's with their NEW reasons why they support the the NEW policy changes, (get off the fence ACPO). Since that time the Canna Zine has pulled no punches in telling why we thought ACPO had back-tracked. In short, if they have no cannabis bust stories to report, they have little in the way of drug war success to tell of, because their fight against class A drugs, the very reason David Blunkett wanted to remove cannabis from the drug theatre of war in the first place, is a lost cause. Today, SOCA, (Serious Organised Crime Agency), has confirmed what we knew all along, confirming the need to keep up its war against cannabis, and British cannabis users.
The agency leading Britain’s fight against organised crime is struggling to cope with the soaring scale of heroin trafficking, it admitted yesterday.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) claimed it was making headway in tackling fraud, gun-running and the cocaine trade but that success in tackling heroin smuggling was “more elusive”. Soca stated in its annual report: “While interdictions of both heroin and opium base surpassed those of the previous year and good leads to money flows were secured, there remained much to do, in the light of increased production, against this very difficult target.”
The agency’s pessimism over the heroin supply is reflected in street prices, which, according to the charity DrugScope, have fallen £10 per gram since 2004. Soca’s largest overseas deployment is in Afghanistan where its agents are working to disrupt big heroin gangs.

Bill Hughes, director-general of Soca, said his internal critics – who toldThe Timesthis week that the agency was top-heavy with senior managers, bureaucratic, divided and ineffective – were undermining agents’ work.

Mr Hughes said: “We have guys in Afghanistan who are working in the most difficult conditions. They are locked down in Kabul at the moment.

“It is not an agency that is out of control. There are some disgruntled people. It is a very small number. If they have something to say to us there are routes to do it.

“To do it in the way they are doing it is to denigrate their colleagues and is disgraceful.”

Sir Stephen Lander, chairman of Soca, conceded that there had been “turbulence” and morale problems since the agency was set up two years ago.

“There has been an issue about overtime,” he added. “We were trying to bear down on some ‘Spanish practices’ that we inherited, such as putting off starting a job back to 4pm so you get overtime.”

Sir Stephen rejected criticism that his management team – Soca has ten directors and 31 deputy directors – was too large.

Vernon Coaker, junior Home Office Minister, said Soca retained his full support and that of Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary.

He added: “Without saying everything in the garden is rosy, progress is being made.”

Soca’s leadership rejected allegations, reported in The Times, that it had failed to make any significant impact in targeting the “Mr Bigs” of organised crime.

It admitted that its original hitlist of 130 key criminals, drawn up in 2006, was flawed.

There were now 2,000 important criminals who were “subject to Soca operational activity”. The agency was working with police forces to build up a picture of the activity of “several thousand” other criminals in England and Wales and similar projects were about to begin in Scotland and Northern Ireland, it was stated.

Mr Hughes said the intelligence was a criminal version of theSunday Times Rich List, with individuals being added or struck off as circumstances changed.

He said 36 key figures were in prison, many of them overseas, as a result of the work of Soca and its international partners. The activities of crime bosses who continued to run their empires from prison were being restricted by court orders requiring them to report all financial activities.

Soca reported 2,033 arrests over the year included more than 500 people arrested in Britain on European arrest warrants and more than 650 people arrested overseas.

Three senior members of a North London drugs gang received jail sentences totalling 74 years.

But the number of antidrug operations was lower than the total conducted the year before.

Instead, more effort was dedicated to detecting firearm-related threats and organised immigration crime.

Cash and grab

90 tonnes of Class A drugs seized in Britain and abroad

60 tonnes of chemicals, used in narcotics processing, seized

£46m of criminal assets restrained by courts

756 arrests made in Britain

4,000 staff in agency

£400m operational budget

Source: Soca

Adapted from an original Article from The Times Newspaper

Canna Zine Cannabis Directory - reach out to the world.

If you run a cannabis blog, website or other organisation which is related to the cannabis community, drop by the new Canna Zine "Cannabis Directory" and add your details to what will become the largest directory of cannabis related organisations in the world today.

Entry to the directory is FREE for a limited time only, so be quick.

Click here to visit the Cannabis Directory.

http://cannazine.co.uk

http://pr.cannazine.co.uk - serving daily cannabis news to a discerning audience since February 2007.

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry