Hats off!

I spend quite a lot of time online reading the posts from PC Bloggs. Mainly as she posts so bloody often.

One of the impressions I get is that the although many of the rank and file officers know what makes for good policing, they don't get to do it. This is usually a result of interfering jobsworths further up the tree who are completely out of touch of what's going on... As a civil servant myself, I sympathize.

However I was quite shocked today to hear a senior police officer saying something very brave that actually made a lot of sense. (Rather than pointing out the glaringly obvious about paedophiles just to get in the papers)

I've always believed in the complete legalisation of drugs and a workie chum of mine (who knows who he is if he's reading this) shares Howard Roberts' view that it would be even more effective to give the smackheads the drugs for free.

This is probably better than legalising as you aren't actively encouraging people to do it in the first place but those with an addiction get it for free rather than committing crime to fund their habit. Plus they can get clean needles instead of running the risk of contracting HIV and pure drugs rather than ones laced with 'bad shit'.

Instead of pissing off the poppy farmers in Afghanistan by burning down their crops, we can buy them off them and win a few 'hearts and minds' in the process.

The only people I don't see it benefiting are drug dealers and other organised criminals as they will loose their market share.

The costs are quoted at £12000 a year but if you can get it illegally for less than £4 a hit then you'd get 8 hits a day for that money. Surely by producing it on mass it would be under £1 a dose?
I don't know what the hit rate is for the average junkie but even assuming they did want 8 hits a day that would cost less than £3000 a year at that kind of price.

Obviously that excludes admin costs but they can't be £9000 per smack head surely?

Anyway regardless of the numbers it makes sense to bring it in. If any junkies accidentally take too much then it saves the law abiding majority even more money.

Perhaps whilst they're at it they could bring brothels above board and under some kind of licensing control? Not the 'zones of tollerance' bullshit that I keep hearing as all that will do is run down particular areas and piss off the people living in or around them.

On the down side, all this would destroy the Amsterdam tourist market.