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Boris Johnson PHOTO Reuters
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The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned drug users that “there is nowhere to hide”, as he is considering confiscating passports and driver’s licenses of those who are caught using Class A drugs, the Times reports.
Under the government’s plans, drug addicts will be encouraged to take drug harm awareness courses, similar to high-speed driving awareness courses. Those who refuse to undergo such training will face a number of tougher administrative penalties, including revocation of their passport or driver’s license, and higher fines. According to the Prime Minister, those for whom drugs, such as cocaine, are a way of life, should be punished in this way.
The plans are part of a ten-year strategy to curb the supply of and demand for illicit drugs in Britain. An additional £ 300 million is expected to be given to police to tackle the drug problem over the next three years. Half of the money will go to the elimination of 2,000 supply lines by 2024, while the rest will go to other anti-drug approaches such as the use of arrest tests. Additional investments will be directed to a new plan for financing the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts.
The Home Office has promised £ 800 million invested in rehabilitation and rehabilitation services. The prime minister said he would not decriminalize drugs because he said there was no evidence that this was the best way to reduce consumption. The strategy uses the carrot and stick approach, which will offer a “recovery path for addicts” and a “chance of repentance for casual consumers”, but also a tougher approach to those who refuse both.
Project Adder, which includes addiction tracking, diversion, interruption and recovery, has been tested in ten areas of the UK. It has performed well in cases of the highest levels of drug abuse and has managed to direct persistent offenders to the treatment services offered.
In remarks published by Downing Street the other day, Johnson said, “The strategy will attack supplies and destroy the pattern by which criminals profit from people’s misery, and those who break the law have nowhere to hide.” Johnson said the government would find new ways to sanction distributors, as current dissuasive measures are not effective enough to stop the demand for drugs. Speaking to the Sun on Sunday, the prime minister said that penalties would be imposed that would interfere with the normal lives of violators, such as confiscation of passports and driver’s licenses.
The strategy is designed to reverse the trend of a sharp increase in drug crime. Last year, police in England and Wales registered 175,000 drug offenses, an increase of 13 percent. There are more than 300,000 heroin and crack addicts in England, who are responsible for almost half of drug-related crime. Every third person in prison is a drug addict. Half of all murders and half of other lesser crimes, such as theft, burglary and robbery, are drug-related.
Police will be forced to take new measures to close drug trafficking networks, using data from dealers’ phones to identify and support addicts. Drug users found on the dealer’s phone will be directed by messages to stop the use of illegal substances and seek support. The tactic, which has already been used in some areas by police, is intended to warn people that they are not anonymous when buying illegal drugs, said a source familiar with the strategy.
An additional 145 million pounds will be given to the police to achieve a new goal – to cut off by 2024 the so-called municipal telephone numbers or lines used by drug traffickers, usually in smaller settlements.
In 2019, the National Crime Agency said there were about 1,000 phone lines or centers, most of them in London, the West Midlands and Merseyside. Each such call center makes an annual profit of over £ 800,000. The prime minister’s new goal of closing 2,000 such lines suggests that their number has increased over the past two years.
Interior Minister Priti Patel said the strategy would help relentlessly pursue supply lines and make the streets safer. Yvette Cooper, the shadow interior minister, said any action by the government must be substantial enough to pay off and repair the damage. She later told the BBC that all this was due to a reduction in the number of police officers in the neighborhoods and problems with the prosecution.
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