OPERATION ADDER
As SNP goes soft on drugs, English cops throw ring of steel round cities to cut supply chain then go after crimelords in...
NOWHERE is the success of Project Adder clearer than in Newcastle.
Police there have made 503 arrests, seized drugs worth £1.5 million and taken 498 weapons off streets.
Adder’s success nationwide is also easy to quantify – 12,500 drug dealers arrested, £3.9 million in cash seized and 700 gangs smashed.
Project Adder stands for Addiction, Diversion, Disruption, Enforcement and Recovery, which aims to combine tough policing with rehabilitation.
Pictures taken by the police show officers storming drug dens to seize large quantities of drugs as well as safeloads of cash made through illegal trafficking.
The tactics have been described as building a ‘ring of steel’ around cities and towns such as Newcastle, Liverpool and Blackpool, with the purpose of reducing the supply of drugs to better allow therapists to begin treating addicts.
In Blackpool, which was the first town to implement Adder in January 2021, 600 drug users have been brought into treatment and 200 dealers arrested.
After the success of the initial pilot, the project has now been rolled out across England and Wales.
Superintendent Jamie Pitt of Northumbria Police said: ‘By bringing services together, Project Adder helps us as a police force to develop our intelligence and investigatory capacity and support our partners in reducing drug-related harm whilst also ensuring that those in need are signposted to recovery services.
‘Project Adder has been in Newcastle for just over a year and it has made great strides so far. We have seized more than £1.5 million of illegal drugs and £267,546 of suspected criminal cash.
‘Stripping criminal organisations of their assets and preventing the sale and distribution of illegal drugs is one of our top priorities. We are committed to tackling this criminality in our communities.’
The Minister responsible for Adder, Kit Malthouse, told this newspaper that Scotland should build its own ring of steel.
The Minister for Policing said: ‘If they put Adder in Dundee, for example, which has a particular problem, the police are able to throw a ring of steel around the city and restrict the drug flow.
‘This means that when somebody is having a therapeutic appointment or they are talking to their counsellor, they are much less likely to walk out of that appointment into the arms of a dealer.
‘Space for therapeutic treatment and rehabilitation work is created by the police.’
Mr Malthouse said that the Scottish Government should adopt Adder to allow Police Scotland to work with English constabularies to stop drug trafficking.
Many of the drugs in Scotland are sourced from England and Wales and smuggled across the Border in ‘county lines’ dealing.
The Minister said: ‘In a city like Dundee, where there are limited ways to get in, it would be possible to work with, for example, Greater Manchester Police and Merseyside Police to constrict rail and road to the extent that it becomes very difficult to move drugs and money. That is why it has been so successful in Blackpool, because there are limited ways to get there.’
Annemarie Ward, who runs the charity Faces and Voices of Recovery UK, called on Project Adder to be introduced in Scotland. She is based in Glasgow and is 25 years clean from drugs. Ms Ward has staff who care for more than 5,000 members across the UK.
She said: ‘What we are seeing in Scotland is people – especially those in our more deprived communities where you are more likely to die from a drug death – being abandoned, neglected and abused. People have lost hope and have given up on themselves and their communities and their own future.’
‘We are committed to tackling this criminality’
SCOTLAND’S appalling record of drug-related deaths is not merely a national tragedy, it’s devastating proof of the ineptitude of the SNP government.
We’ve regularly seen the rate of drug deaths rise. And, with the release of each new set of statistics, we’ve heard promises of action from Ministers.
All the evidence tells us these warm words of reassurance are worthless.
And so, the Scottish Government’s refusal to adopt a new strategy – which has succeeded in tackling addiction in England and Wales – is not only baffling, it is deeply troubling.
Project Adder takes a two-pronged approach to this issue – intervening and supporting those caught in the trap of addiction while also ruthlessly targeting drug gangs.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Kit Malthouse, the UK Minister for Policing, speaks of his frustration at SNP Ministers’ refusal to participate in the scheme. He suggests the SNP seems unwilling to accept police have a crucial role to play in tackling the scourge of addiction.
As a society, we have come – quite rightly – to see those addicted to drugs as victims rather than criminals to be written off.
But our better understanding of the problems that might lead a person to take drugs does not mean we should ever let up on trying to bring down the criminal gangs that prey on the vulnerable. The SNP has shown by its failure that it is out of its depth in this area. Ministers should therefore be willing to learn from others with a record of success.
It would be disturbing indeed if the Scottish Government’s refusal to adopt Project Adder was simply down to SNP Ministers’ desire to do things differently from their counterparts at Westminster. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that this is the case.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon once admitted her government had taken its ‘eye off the ball’ when it came to drug deaths. It would appear that situation remains unchanged.