Drugs stance ‘causing deaths’
THE newly-appointed boss of a Welsh police force has said that treating drug addiction as a criminal matter is causing thousands of “entirely preventable” deaths.
Chief constable Richard Lewis, who is leaving Cleveland Police to take over the top job at Dyfed-powys Police, said the so-called “war on drugs” has already cost too many lives – though he recognised how difficult it might be for some politicians to change their approach given the appeal of the “tough on crime” stance.
The officer said the issue of drugs and drug addiction should be seen as a public health issue. He pointed to a heroin-assisted treatment pilot project in Middlesbrough, which gives doses of synthetic heroin to users under the supervision of medical staff, as offering a “meaningful alternative to the street drugs that can be bought from organised crime groups”.
Carmarthenshire-born Mr Lewis spent 18 years with Dyfed-powys before becoming chief constable with the north-east of England force in 2019. This summer he was chosen to be the new head of his home force.
Writing in the Guardian newspaper he said: “In 21 years of police service I have slowly, perhaps too slowly, come to the conclusion that framing this crisis as a criminal justice problem has not simply been unhelpful, but counterproductive. This nationwide epidemic is a public health crisis.
“Having said that, if it’s to be labelled as a problem, perhaps it’s best characterised as a political one. It must be recognised how hard it is for mainstream parties to initiate a conversation on drugs policy reform when votes are often won by being ‘tough on crime’. I agree with the sentiment, but there are different ways of achieving this. Some early advocates for reform do exist across the political divide, including MPS Crispin Blunt (Conservative) and Jeff Smith (Labour), but there is a growing appetite beyond Westminster to fundamentally reconsider our response.”
The officer said in his time as Cleveland’s chief constable the force increased the number of stop and searches carried out by officers, and had seen a large increase in the amount of illicit drugs seized – something he was proud of. But he warned that the police working alone as a single agency could have little impact on the problem as a whole.
He said: “The production of heroin in Afghanistan, and cocaine in South America, has increased; organised crime activity and violence is at an historic high; and deaths continue to rise. If we are to be serious about tackling this crisis, a fundamental change of approach is required.”
He continued: “Most of us have allowed the message on drugs being bad to be conflated with addicts themselves being bad simply for using drugs. Let me be clear: some of the most odious and evil acts I’ve encountered in my police service have been perpetrated by drug addicts; but this is not universally true.”
The chief constable said a heroinassisted treatment programme he had seen during his time in Cleveland “offers hope” that, if scaled up to a national level, could cut the demand for heroin. He said: “When the state offers a meaningful alternative to the street drugs that can be bought from organised crime groups, the demand for them decreases. What remains to be seen is how organised crime groups will adapt to plug a huge drop in profits.”
During his 18 years in Dyfed-powys Police he served in every rank up to deputy chief constable working in all four counties in the force. He has also been the head of the professional standards department and chaired the Wales counter corruption working group. In 2010 he gained a Fulbright Scholarship at Pennsylvania State University where he studied Taser deployments leading to adverse incidents, and he has recently completed a doctorate at Bath Spa University.