Undercover Drug dealer - Cop Neil Woods tells his story

make sure you collect a link to subscribe to my youtube channel and also click the notifications button to be notified for when my next podcast cause life you can also follow me on my social media platforms the fainter who my latest guest as I hope you enjoy this week's episode thank you member eoghan and today's guest you've got new words news a four month a cover Copa for 14 years first of all neo just want to thank you for coming on the show frankness is the first time I've sat across my coupon I'm the one that's asking the questions today so it's refreshing and so you've released two books you went undercover some ducks topics you went what's on em we'll go right back to the start where you grew up and how you get involved in love if you would involved then yeah well I grew up in I suppose you could call it a sleepy middle-class town called Buxton in the Peak District and but I didn't really realize at the time how sheltered it was but I made a bit of a deaf mistake I went to university by mistake and why I thought that I would enjoy Business Studies have no idea but I quickly found out it wasn't for me and I dropped out so I went home I was going to go backpacking around Europe a couple of my friends had done that it sounded exciting but then I saw an advertisement in the local newspaper before the police and I thought well that sound exciting too but I couldn't make my mind up so I flipped a coin and it came up heads and that's why I applied for the police so I suppose you could say I was literally flippant about it sort of flopping other coins basically put your life in that path yeah some things I said basically do who hangs just flip the coin and all with that so when you first joined the police how long did it take before you went undercover well it's about four years but I mean I was really crap as uniform cop I was terrible you know I couldn't deal with conflict I couldn't work out my people still wants to keep punching me when I was trying to calm him down I just you know I just didn't realize how sheltered had been did you see a lot of violence towards yourself at the start has been on the beat yeah I mean you know uniformed police have to put up with violence all that all the time but it was it was just a bit of a culture shock to me so I almost lost my job a few times to be honest but I clung on their butt and after four years there was the mother of all moral panics about about drugs and the reason for that is that the tabloid newspapers the media were constantly publishing stories about crack cocaine in America four years before we actually had any so the moment it hit the streets in the UK the general public were already scared so the Home Office reacted overreacted and invested huge amounts of money in drugs policing that meant I could get an attachment to the drug squad now the drug squad hated having as rookies around they really did but one of them sort of looked at me one day and said come see I'm gonna go out buying some crack and I mean that wasn't a question I was expecting as you know as you do yeah and I says for young game for anything and so it gave me 20 quid went to this Terrace house knocked on this door and this huge guy came to the door and quite quickly agreed to sell me some crack and he was quite nice actually he said you know you take care don't get yourself arrested and so I came back to the drug squad there holding my little stone of crack I've got it look but but that day then defined the next fourteen years of my life because I was young and I was quite calm and I was doing that kind of work so one day turned into several weeks doing it then several months because it was a new tactic it hasn't been done in Britain before so but you know people cut to prison they talk to other people and suddenly they know they know that there's a new thing out there and there are cops pretending to be drug users so it got more and more difficult and so I couldn't go to any inner-city area without spending six months there because I would have to win people's trust you know build a legend and work my way up to get the introductions why did the drug squad not like the rookies because they were a professional unit they were seasoned detectives they knew what they were doing with surveillance they had a sort of slick way of running and having these having these rookies just sort of given to them you know to learn a few things were a bit of a pain in the ass to them really a great gain underfoot why do you think the picture to go forward and pretend to be a drug user Java say look body shape I just couldn't young and naive that you'd agreed to do anything possibly that yeah well I mean I was a young skinny lad and I looked actually a lot younger than than I thought I was I was only 23 but I must have looked about at 19 so they it was just a toy hit just a chance sort of suggestion you know because it really was a new tactic hadn't been done before I've ordered that King that stuff had been done for many many years well higher-end undercover work had been done where informants would introduce a high a high end you know someone to further up the ladder to do a big deal or something like that and they might spend two years doing it but actually starting at the ground level and working your way up that hasn't happened in the UK so how deep did you have to go then see when you have when you go undercover do you get a free pass to basically do anything like take drugs sleep with people or fate do you get the past just to get the end with the high the profile to go deep and both the trust because if you see your undercover on something hard slates expression these are that apart it's on the poster about a corker ecstasy and a few kings of God now that what not with that playing suspicion to the they come with basically main thing go he's [ __ ] dodgy well I mean it could - but it's about managing it thankfully I never had to take any heroin never had to take any crack crack wouldn't have worried me particularly but I never had to I did have to take amphetamine once but that's because I made a really stupid mistake I made myself out to be a connoisseur of amphetamines and they saw this this gangster was involved in car thefts and antique burglaries and stuff one day said or you got present for you and held with this little see-through bag with this toxic looking pink goo in it you could smell it even through the bag it smelt like the urine from a glue sniffing cat it was smelt disgusting it really did but the thing is I went I was momentarily weary and he could see that glimpse of sort of erm weariness and so I knew because I've seen him notice that I knew I had to take some I'd be in trouble if I didn't so there's been his moments I was uh it was it was amphetamine but it was based on vitamin and at the time the average purity of of speed was 5% this was 40 percent so I stopped a little finger in at a little bit and he says now you'll need more than that with your tolerance I think okay so I hit my stomach in that warm feeling and you know within 20 minutes I was out of it I mean really out of it it was the most horrible angsty feeling I mean I knew enough about amphetamine you know you need to take quite a lot to overdose so I wasn't particularly worried but but I didn't sleep really for three my house has ever been so tired yeah how is that what then if you're gonna take some speed you know you're going to be threatened balls do you speak to people at the office or how do you judge that do you go to the hospital so what kind of procedure do you have to do well when you take it well I have a cover person you know someone's supposedly looking after my welfare he just got me driven home I assured him I didn't need to go to the hospital I know you take you need to take a lot of amphetamine to overdose so I wasn't overly worried but I got home and I know you know I was being driven home and on the way home I'm thinking I've got eight cans of Stella in the fridge that'll sort me out that'll calm me down now finish the eighth one I felt no different at all so he says that you wouldn't be scared the ting here in here you would be skeleton heroin but not connect way as up well I mean heroin I wouldn't know it's too easy to overdose with heroin you know and I wouldn't have been the first time you know you take tiny amounts of first time sistahs find a really scary drug butt crack i wouldn't find as scary it's quite hard to overdose on it so obviously when you started to find your feet and really go and to the uncharted waters what was your first bike job then as an undercover cop or two to get information and get a conviction I mean there's so many early on I suppose the first really the first huge one the really six-month one was in was in Leicester and it primarily went into this area of plastic all high fields which is sort of typical sort of post-industrial in a city terraced housing area you know there's lot there's lots of them similar around around the UK and I mean if it involves six months worth of buying drugs from various different people I mean there was a few scary moments with that one there was one in particular where two rival gangs got their heads together and realized I've been buying off all of them and you know it's not necessarily normal for someone to sample every single dealers products when you you know you could have a relationship with someone who could meet you every day you know so so they got suspicious and one time they they they waited for myself and lined up along this wall and when I saw them I realised that the two rival gangs were together I was in some serious trouble here thankfully I was with a fellow undercover cop who were a girl who managed to defuse it and start pulling me away saying leave it leave it as if I was getting to get aggressive with them it was a sort of just trick that she thought up at the time really for the work it did work it did and also I didn't show out I didn't because they are doubts but they weren't convinced and as long as you stay in in character and as long as you don't ever admit it that's the sort of golden broom so as there's about acting cumin if they also does it more just let all please well how much when you and go in a character how much do you need to change completely there's a feature also when you finish work well we didn't have training for a long time when but and I helped design some of the original training but we had some level one some long-term undercover cops teachers and they said that it's important you're not an actor and don't try and be an actor you have to play a different version of yourself because if you're an actor you playing a role on a stage or a part in a film or something and you can maintain that role but if you're undercover you could be amongst people for you know 20 hours you could be living in a community with them so if you try and act yes you can soon be seen through but because you're living that thin veil difference you're being a different version of yourself yeah you can find yourself taking it home but I think I'm I always manage to separate working and home life I still manage to get home and take my kids swimming on a Sunday morning away at the time so well you grew up and then obviously getting moved I don't League wander cover did you ever notice anybody that you knew or did you ever become suspect that one or him he's a copper that did you have to go follow a field so you wouldn't be recognized oh yeah traveled all over the country I don't go anywhere near where I left so I works as far south as Brighton as far north as Leeds and lots of places in between is there anybody who you became really close with that you maybe got a conviction muffiny you feel maybe sorta for yeah there's lots of them to be honest there's a guy called kami in in Nottingham and when I got there in Nottingham I was there to infiltrate a gang called the burg sorry the gang a gang called the best wood cartel run by a gangster called Colin gun and it took me I had to pick on somebody to manipulate and what you do is among the [ __ ] of a carp is actually to pick on the most vulnerable people for one they're the most easy to manipulate but also vulnerable people tend to be using more drugs so they have more contacts they know everybody so this particular guy he was perfect for my purposes because he was on bail for dealing heroin and he was connected to the exact gang that I needed to get close to and actually I knew because he was on bail I knew that his life was going to be made worse by me meeting him I knew that and this I found really difficult because I had to justify what I was doing you know because I was struggled with the ethics of it because I knew he was gonna be at risk because if he's the Muppet who's introduced undercover cop several months later he's a recent risk getting murdered and at least the beating but also his life's going to be made worse by meeting me because he's on bail he could get to jail and he's someone who's a problematic heroin user and needs help but then what I did is I justified that to myself because I took the view at the time that the end justified the means you know at the end of the operation I'm going to put loads of gangsters in prison so to me that made it justified it so with kami I got to know him I got in presents when shoplifting with him which is great fun by the way if you know you've got to get out of jail free card it's such fun especially if you're working you're working with someone else and you take it in turns to be lookout and it's great fun bastard so you short left in thinking he's a great short left and I'll get in touch not realizing that you've got a free pass well I still got arrested it's just later on down the line it would he would he would still got done actually resolved with you yeah he would have done yeah yeah probably you know so I would give him presents and I really would him over and and like I did with most people who were struggling with drugs I would take the time to listen to them you know because I was you have to show their empathy for people to manipulate them I suppose I called it weaponizing empathy but in that process I didn't really start to understand people because now and when I was 19 I went into the police I saw someone struggling with drugs I just thought other stupid they've made a mistake and they haven't got the willpower to get out of it was very judgmental yeah but then I got to know these people and and cami was it he was a nice bloke you know but he'd grown up with a in a the traumatic childhood which is the case with F seeing every single problematic area news that I've met and most problematic drug users about their dealings or physical abuse that's what they're dealing with and I believe about myself and obviously when you look at no matter where you're from I believe conditioning becomes a big part of a fueled grown around a claim drank drugs violence it becomes you and always say you become it becomes normal so again the drug appears as tanam some sort of pain and feeling anybody who's over drinking over the in taking drugs you're hiding from something you can't face reality and obviously the excuses come in but it becomes at a deeper level and understand that you are doing a job but people do struggle and I believe everybody has get goodness and them everybody has and certain circumstances can trigger I just made a documentary that in Costa Rica with a plant-based drugco ayahuasca and they they call it the the splat the first but a trauma you have in your life is let the sauce plots and that's when we wrap our self run and like an onion Bay we use the drank the drugs that even the violence as a shield to China fell or something that's a mess so I caught likely without the drugs as to numb the pain and it's sad because the homeless stuff that we do in Glasgow when you speak to people you understand us on these sons on this door mom dad friend and it can be difficult so obviously for you looking and as an understanding that okay these people are lost here and you started instead of taking up from the job to get the results start showing the empathetic or walk here I really want to help you here yeah exactly and and that I mean that was gradual but and and now I realized that criminalizing people who were trying to deal with trauma is literally the worst thing you can do to them it's it's cruelty it is but at the time I was still and wrapped up in the drug war you know but kami I I I got friendly with him you know that done at the end of the operation everyone got arrested loads of people got arrested of course he did as well he was committing offenses on bail with me and I found out later that when he was in the police cells he ended up on minutes minute watch suicide watch and the reason for that is because he thought I was his one friend in the world this the one person he'd found he could talk to and for someone trying to deal with his struggles in life that was the last straw for him yeah and that's what turned him suicidal so it's not even the fact he's one hit president not even the fact that gangsters meet want to come as a fact that the one person who's give trust to is basically done against them but betrayed him yeah so they're banned them and I should kick and overdrive then the drug abuse where he's just once the end that was yes you can understand that old social where do you draw the line then to take a job from personal there's a Jewish girl job in Thai lingo I'm doing a job here and just try and block that shadow it was real Carter I mean that that hit me like a ton of bricks when I found that out to be honest yeah I thought I've got to give this up stop it instantly you know this is just emotionally devastating um but then two weeks later I got a phone call and it was a des who said no look would see we need you for this job we need you for this next job because these gangsters are even nastier than the last lock these gangsters are using rape as punishment these they're using rape and maimings as just reputation building you know we've got to stop them and you're the person to do it so you know I'm a I was a prime manipulator but I also got manipulated you know and and I swallowed my upset and I went back into it and I still hadn't come to the natural conclusion I still hadn't joined all the dots that makes sense so even though the other people in Futurama you must have been through some sort I mean [ __ ] is well did you get treatment for that to try and for focus on the negative shot as well seen people overdose and seen people selling drugs the jury because it makes a lot of look like a bad place I've lost I believe they'll stop goodness I believe I am did you get people you could turn to and speak to and get the help that you needed now no not really and by that time I'd been almost killed a few times as well through various operations they had we had mandatory once a year counselling session but having had counseling more recently since I've left the police I realized that the counseling we had then was a waste of time it was a back covering and asked covering exercise from the place to say that they'd done it and it wasn't it was worth it was worthless completely you feel as if you were getting used in a point to just going out there and sacrifice your mental health and sacrifice your life just to get results absolutely yeah completely myself and others like like me were just thrown thrown to the wolves really because they were confident they covered their back I mean I I am tie I am now diagnosed legally with PTSD and I've had some treatment for that but I know I'll never be the same again and and I understand what's caused that is that knowing the harm that I've caused it with us and all of those instances where you know I've almost died and but carried I'm working so what's the worst thing you ever seen whale undercover worst I'd be hard-pressed to choose one to be honest but there was one instance in Northampton where I was trying to sort sauce a new dealer to get a new line to just to to this group I'm just trying to join a few dots and I met up with this guy who it just came up to me and said hey are you scoring are you going somewhere and so I said well yeah you know he said you wanna share her back so third right great yeah another guy suddenly turned up and not seen before and he says well I'm getting a taxi to go and go he wants to come I'm paying the taxi fine and then suddenly there's four of us in this taxi the first guy that had come up to me he was completely yellow like not even a hint of it like proper yellow Simpson's yellow from I've looked into keys but we got hepatitis C on these yeah so he's struggling so we go to the side of as Northampton her score some heroin I'm splitting the bag with this guy because there was just part of my cover story to just manage half but they said what a week we're we're shooting it so we'll have to go to these toilet direct toilets in the middle of his park so he went to this park because I'll my story was I was going to take it away in smoking so as I'm walking to these toilets the yellow guy says I haven't had anything for three days I've been arrested or remanded in custody and I'm thinking looking at the state of him thinking so he's got no tolerance and he's gonna inject her back I mean it's the most like it's the most common overdoses when you come out of police custody you tolerance has gone down so I was worried about that and I'm thinking how far away am i from a phone box I haven't got a mobile phone on me then no the guy who's got filters and they'd only got two filters between three of them so one guy says I will don't worry I just go into my groin I don't need a filter I'm thinking that's the worst place to go into your body with that without a filter so I'm thinking he's gonna he's gonna have an M and your mu lism embolism got the word wrong he's gonna have a brain bleed hostels the other guy the yellow guy is probably gonna overdose and God knows what he's doing and so they're all cooking up and the yellow guy goes into the back of his hand and then starts to really gouging and nodding and as he's nodding he starts in his face this Robin and just half-unconscious rubbing all this blood over his face it's got blood dripping down his face his face is yellow and I'm worried he's gonna die and the other guy drops his trousers using no filter go straight into his groin and injects there and then the other guy he's in his hand as well so I got spurts of blood from one hand which I'm stepping out the way that way spurts from another one I'm stepping out the way that way and there's loads of blood bouncing him there on the floor and you see clouds of dust wherever each blood droplet is falling and I'm expecting two of them to die and I'm just watching carefully thinking you know what what do i do first when they do and I was working myself up into a bit of a panic to be honest and all the time thinking where I've got a wrap up my heroin half of the bag that I've got yeah that was one of the moments really but the yellow guy I had rather dark humour with the guy who had jaundice I said you've got a little bit of something there it was covered in blood but then the other guy says hey mate you're covered in blood and when are my and he's like trying to rub it off and he's just going like from yellow to pink and then we walk out of those those derelict toilets and he's have you seen even you've seen people who were walking when they're on heroin yeah it's an odd sort of shuffle gouging shuffle isn't it so he's like that the other two it didn't touch the sides thankfully the guy went into his groin lived live to risk another day but the things it's so upsetting to think that the three of them are really very likely dead no it's the way you've gotta look at it we always like obviously been in the police force but then you know using those people who take drugs to get to a bag of flesh but those people are stole human beans they'll like the pawns of the game that are relevant it's cutting yourself getting used there you go what happens when your kitty has finished and then you're walking the streets how has your life been are you still where do you look over your shoulder are you scared that the people who you've put behind bars come looking for you occurs know your videos walking you're an activist against their drugs against all the drugs that's gonna bow and you've got your books hoes you'll leave now that you've finished the whole note you dopes booking and you're basically showing your face oh well I mean I I am still hyper-vigilant I didn't use them quite twitch you know I didn't use the twitch I'm always looking after my over my shoulder I feel more comfortably for ghosts Americans ii see the end exit you know that kind of thing but i'm not worried about organized-crime coming after me and i've put some serious gangsters in prison but i'm not worried about them coming after me you know I I used to give evidence with the wrists with a pseudonym we smuggled into court smuggled out with a blanket over my head and stuff but but now I lose my real name you know I tell people a living he referred but no one's coming after me and the reason is that the violence the extreme violence that exists within the drug markets with organized crime that's just part of the business model that's to protect themselves in their business it's to reduce their risk you know the more intimidating they are then the less at risk they are because they don't get crushed up there's no gain for them to come and take revenge on me because that would be a high-risk venture with no gain so you know that the violence is in the mark it's just it's just the business model and it's a business model because the drugs are illegal because we police it yeah so what should happen y'know and gangsters then what do you see them as people who are high-profile who are flooding the streets with drugs claimed prostitution what do you look at them and see I see people that are a product of the system and you may see you mentioned prostitution but really most of all most all of organized crime really is about the drug supply the illicit drug supply all the crimes are possible because of the money that's available from the illicit drug supply even the National Crime Agency says that you know its word the market is worth 10 billion pounds of a year in the UK ten billion now those gangsters only exist because drugs are banned organized crime didn't exist because before alcohol prohibition there was proud the prohibition of alcohol that created organized crime there was no connection at all between crime and drugs in this country until drugs were bound so I see a gangster and I see someone who was a natural product of the way we treat drugs it's a natural product of drug policy yeah so obviously what about legalizing drugs it's the only solution your functional it's the only solution to the problem we've got as I say there was no link between drugs and crime beforehand but the government want illegalized drugs because then if the drugs are legalized the pleasent system mumbles drop em even pharmaceutical drugs because marathons are massive problem in Scotland it's a drug that it's it's just a bogan dollar industry as well and itself the the these numbers want to be dropped our money organization we're not just criminals are involved in drugs but also the people who are involved and higher scale even a police force governments as there are what I could option and say the police's will well I mean that there's there's a lot of questions there about basically first of all I want to point out that legalizing weed in the activism world we tend to try and avoid the word legalize because people people find it a scary word and it sort of gives an idea of a free-for-all well the thing is it's a free-for-all now it's the Wild West out there it really is there is no control the people who decide what drugs what goes in what drugs are new they're sold to are organized criminals it should be licensed premises so legally regulating drugs is about getting them under control like we do alcohol but of course I'll [ __ ] could be controlled better no of course but at least you can tweak alcohol regulation you can do cuz it's regulated I think alcohol just a bug that one of the biggest drugs out there let's more qualified that's more sociable acceptable as ever they're saying sharp well there is clear evidence that it's the most dangerous drug so that very clear yeah very clear but the people who don't want legal regulation is organized crime so the closer we get to legal regulation there will be pushed back from organized crime and they will use their methods of corruption to try and stop that progression but as for corruption well yeah I mean corrupt corruption is huge suddenly well it's its massive but I'll tell you I mean I've come into contact with police corruption quite quite a lot of times but perhaps the most significant event I'll tell you about if if if you like of course again I'll take you back to Nottingham where I met coming can we introduce me to one of the gangsters who was in the team of calling gun about four and a half months into the operation the day after that two of my backup team went off sick so I got two new people to come onto the team I'm at the first one shook his hand had no problem with him the second one shook his hand and the hairs just went up on the back of my neck you know when you've been on the streets day day after day feeling at rescue senses are quite fine-tuned you know you're really sensitive to body language and this guy was just wrong so I spoke to the boss and said look boss I I can't have this guy knowing what I'm doing so he excluded them both so they didn't ask any questions and they they never found out what the job is about twelve months later Colin Gunn is brought down brilliant work by knotting Hampshire Constabulary and it was found that that cop that I'd taken exception to a guy called Charlie Fletcher was an employee of Colin gun he'd been paid to join the police and he was paid 2,000 pounds a month on top of his police wages for information and bond plus bonuses for good information by the time I'd met him he'd been in the police for seven years seven years you can you know you can look him up he's he's as the newspaper stories of his conviction as I'm lying Charley Fletcher now I have to make something really clear that kind of corruption can only be paid for by the money from the illicit drug supply there's two reasons for that the one there's more money in the illicit drug supply than anything else but to the way we police drugs creates monopolies see police are really good at catching drug dealers brilliant at it they'll catch them day after day that catch twice as many if you give them twice as much resources they will do but they never make they never shrink the market the market never reduces ever you can arrest the drug dealer you just create an opportunity for another one or two more so by policing drugs and arresting people you thin out the competition for the most successful gangsters and in fact the best gangsters use police informants to get rid of the competition police do the business for them yeah there's a lot of high-profile gangsters who are Snatchers I believe was a lot on forums out there who thought it Pleasant because it also worked with the police do you see that a lot a lot of high-profile names govern the police information to keep them off the old bike but also Jill their competition around them that's exactly how it works and in fact there's a chapter in drug wars where we interviewed a guy called frank matthews who was a high profile informant handler in the mat and he realized the extent of police corruption and he started reporting on it whistleblowing he'd put so many gangsters in prison he chased organized crime all of his career only went at the point when he started grassing up fellow police officers did he realize his life was a threat he thought he was going to get murdered and in fact he had to be snatched he had to be taken away and put into witness protection to protect him from corrupt police so what's the famed line then between entrapment also if you're certain that a party are certain buying drugs off someone are taking it in front of them what well as an entrapment charge came into play where it's like you're saying up but what as entrapment we're not even saying no yeah I mean with the rules of undercover policing the first instruction you're given actually in your formal sort of instructions for deployment the number one is you must not act as an agent provocateur which is what you're talking about entrapment and an agile provocateur is where you incite somebody to commit an offense or an offense which is more serious than they would have committed so and that's important and that'sthat's about the ethics of undercover policing that you that you don't and trap somebody I did actually once break that rule it's one of the chapters in good cop there was a burglar who was Bergling old women at night picking on old age pensioners flats local police knew who it was that couldn't catch him lots of extra patrols he was brilliant at forensics didn't it never left any DNA fingerprints anything so they thought well he's a deal he's dealing amphetamine as well on cocaine so they basically sent me in to see if we could get him off the streets by another means and I bought small amounts off him and then I talked him up to a kilo and I knew he wasn't capable of kilo but to my mind it was a way of catching him and so when when he was seized with the kilo it was less than one percent pure which means he'd only got a small amount and he putted it out but he got senses than a kilo now that was unethical of me but that is one of the things that goes on and it's actually one of the reasons why police are very very resistant someplace not all police lots the police in the UK are actually calling for drug law reform but there are some police who see the drug laws is just the tool to catch criminals and and so that's why you'll find some police are actually resistant to reform yes we had the key law and that was only one percent basically pure yeah so he's probably the last shard yeah he's charged with a few key law yeah yes Gaelic is I've had a lot of people on the podcast as well who's been set up with the police who's spent 20 years behind bars and just through em maybe get stuff planted or nama and they'll say look the new 'angels but the cause they can't catch them then they set them up if something else is that that that used to happen a lot of people getting set up and she to get them off the streets I don't doubt it does happen but that I haven't hired Mencia particularly ho it's difficult anybody it's gonna evolved in a leaf a claim they always look at the police's are an enemy and you can understand that especially if you've worked in both sides from buying drugs to try to catch them which been your biggest bust biggest bust yeah I suppose in terms of numbers numbers that suppose it was that it was the burger bar boys in Northampton because they were a gang from Birmingham who taken over the supply Northampton and at the end of that I think it was there was 96 people arrested took seven months there was 96 people all in all involved in the trade there were six major gangsters from you know amongst the burger bar boys and the rest were people who were runners for them and people stashing for them and also all such things but they only that seven months I knew I knew I had caught every single person involved in the heroin crack and amphetamine trade in that town every person I knew that because there were no more numbers to go I've met everybody I knew so that huge operation involve five different counties of police it's huge approach because they wanted to get as many people in one go and so it was massive and it was newspaper their articles about it and I spoke to the Intel guy a week later he says yep we've managed to shut down the drug supply in Northampton for two hours two hours that's not even enough time for someone to rattle off you know so obviously faintin against the drug war when you see that you need 100 people put in Sayed some deals just come through the ranks and take sit-ins so the ever few er faintly [ __ ] lost cause well it took a long time for the panic to drop for me but that you know but you can't dismiss that you can't dismiss the fact that another organised crime group just came from Birmingham and there was a new number on the streets in two hours and that organized crime group would have been rubbing the runs together saying look what the police have done for us put the calling boys to get some extra stuff we're gonna make a absolute killing there so all you doing is constantly perpetuating the file it's just our luscious soft call that the you see a lot that maybe who's someone who's making a lot of money flu drugs and maybe seen someone who's also involved and claims say it name up to get them away so they can move on in obviously they can take over oh yeah I mean there's all sorts of dirty tricks used trying to try and take someone's territory off them all the time and sometimes those dirty tricks just come down to violence and murder but there's always friction because in an unregulated market you're always gonna get that you don't get it you know you don't get a fight between Carlsberg and Heineken or Smirnoff and and you know Jack Daniels you don't because it's regulated but in this unregulated market it's complete chaos now the trouble that I had is when that penny dropped for me and I realized that how futile it was that I might you know I might be fooling filling the prisons up full of people but that wasn't making society safer this is more people became drug dealers more people stepped into that crime so it's actually increasing crime so and also I had to face up to the fact that you know from that first guy your nuts on the door and he said take care don't get arrested nice bloke every year after their the streets got more violent 4:40 every single year so I had to face up to the fact that actually that's down to me or people like me so what do you think the problem as obviously poverty it plays a big part my people am i struggling to make money sort of see claim as I get out cause where they can feed their family but I always believe in karma anybody who I know has been actively involved in anything dodgy I lead up there that energy and that's just facts that's just there's no one ever get so what would what is your advice for anybody who's maybe involved in anything dodgy and think there's no way out what would you advice would you give them what have you seen to prove that in a [ __ ] life even though you may faint your belly bag balls you've Lang Glasgow you'll see them driving about gnarly scars the fake Rolex is ineffective gangsters as I leave for Missouri because everything hazard are perfect if you're destroying other people's life to Ben factor on it's only going to come back bacon now should get one option and that's miserly you ain't going to have a good leaf I've had a lot uh series cameras on that podcast and every one of them hotel you ain't a leaf we like a shot me in three years five years ten years what was catch-up yeah what advice would you give for anybody that's maybe involved on may be faintly but getting fall because I see me but that uncle's our fathers are what advice would you give them for maybe not I take that leap or maybe a change hmm well I'm gonna answer that question in a slightly unusual way if you don't mind cause because there's a great misunderstanding about the cause of crime crime is not caused by criminals it's caused by opportunity coupled with the lack of opportunity so in other words people who have no other options in poor communities are more likely to turn to crime theoretically but the most important thing to notice if you're if you're committing a burglary you're a burglar there's very little demand for that crime because as very few people are actually willing to commit that crime break into someone's house very few so if you arrest one person you reduce that demand for the crime of anew now for drug crime if you arrest someone for a drug crime you've not reduced the demand in that market someone else will take take it take take that place so you asked what the problem is there is a difference there's a massive difference between drug prohibition and all of the crimes you've got to separate them the communities being affected by people are involved in organized organized crime drug dealing they're affected because the drugs are banned they're not regulated now us as for what what I would say to people who would consider getting into crime well most drug dealers I've met I mean I've met top the top of the tree ones I've met some middle management and some people can be vicious actually the vast majority of drug dealers are nice people who trade to a small group of people you know most people are know will sell cannabis they're nice people most people who sell MDMA they're just nice people who get it in for their mate so that weekend or for a festival you know most people use drugs do it non problematically most people who sell drugs socially they're not criminals they're people who are doing a natural human thing but because the law says they're illegal they're criminals so I think it's important to separate this in a conversation ninety percent of drug use is non problematic so you have to start thinking about but people who have a problem with drugs as someone who just needs help and other people they just need regulated drugs to make it safer so I know that's not quite what you're after in the question but that there are solutions to our problems in society and the first solution the most important one is to regulate the drug markets if you do that the police can deal with more serious crime then we can start looking at health based solutions for things because it's actually significantly cheaper to try and look after people then it is to incarcerate them or scotland's its all-time high just know Scotland as just resin to it seven percent with drug-related deaths or as massive in Scotland so it's our concern that's our worry I have kids and I know how bad that can be grown up in a rough area so for me it's I worry and for me people who think it can be cool thank you for me and I've always said drug as escapism no my office at first for normal water as you can have fun without I've took drugs for many years but looking back in that's because I was weak because I was lonely because I was scared I couldn't face trial it kept it gave me the courage and strength to be loud and daft as if I was fain but looking back I was vulnerable so for me boom artifice I face the rule no matter water as an amount of your you can control that it's though you stole Hayden from something and whether you think but follow working and the drug culture and try to stop it and try it did you see any any moment the claims going down other drugs becoming less and less because right now I think well at the peak of claim and drug-related lives which is scary since drugs were banned they have got stronger cheaper and more varied constantly when I was buying it's a tent bag of heroin in 1993 for that ten pounds I would get not 0.12% nor point 1/2 of a gram and I was paying for fourteen years later I was paying ten pounds for the same amount but over that period of time the drug got significantly stronger so what other commodity is that that's inflation proof and gets stronger over time the reason for that is because the drug is a real is it has an illicit market we have no control over it so we have to control things but I have to disagree with you that about a minute I took I took a view that any drug used was was a problem or escapism you know when I started in the place and for many people it is but ninety percent of people who use drugs have no problematic relationship with them at all so I now realize you know looking at the evidence speaking to scientists obviously research in the history of drug policy in the UK I now realize drug use is actually normal it's a normal human activity should that be normal why shouldn't it be because it is taking anything you take externality shock wave from a conscious flame I mean which not is not natural well who says it's not natural human have been using drugs for thousands of years there's various animals use drug use is quite a natural it's a natural existence natural thing to do but but but how could we fail war on drugs F yet except and it's all care for people with thicker but we have to learn to live with drugs but that's what we have to do what's the alternative we tried burning them and stopping people using I don't all try and not take them again because scared about a lot of people who are homeless and cersei then it can't give up yeah but even if you think you're thinking that I know people who's had a great life clear upbringing ticket maybe a few Ling's a few grams are calling us out the name but that few grams can sure the go Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday and it can't get up you see it's often a very fun Lane to see people in just take it out first of all and neat clubs are just fingers are better way to enjoy life and have a more healthy unnatural organic life than hey them from the peon basically but it comes down to individual choice doesn't it an individual choice becomes very very important because how what people do with their own mind and body really needs to be about their own personal liberty and when the government decides that then no one's allowed to do that then the illicit market is created so some people want to use cannabis some people want to use alcohol some people use cannabis because they they don't like alcohol and actually cannabis is the safer choice when you compare the two yeah but you know I just I don't I don't want to take drugs but I want people to have the freedom and if they are going to do them I want them to survive it I want it to be as safe as possible now I'll give you an example of it of a regulated drug tobacco is regulated it is according to any drug counselor that you'll speak to more addictive and difficult to quit than anything we now have the lowest smoking rate in the UK since 1940 and that's only possible because it's a regulated product because if we have some control over how it's sold the price who it's sold to and because it's a regulated product that you know exactly what's in it you can also have advice on the label you can have advertising campaigns telling you what it's doing to you but you can only do that if you've found a way to live with it and that's what we need to do with the other less dangerous drugs so what would you say was less dangerous drugs less dangerous than tobacco yeah well in terms of the deaths and harms there if they're all less dangerous than tobacco all of them cause the council rates and yeah another a lot of the health problems and looking at the science all of the drug are less dangerous than alcohol and the evidence I referred to for that is a 2007 report in The Lancet the scientific journal from Professor David Nutt and he did a new way of comparing drug harms honey there's a lot of detail to it and it quite clearly showed that the most dangerous drug is alcohol our awareness of ingress no cocaine is dangerous but then the sliding scale goes quickly down so at the bottom and you've got very little harm for things like magic mushrooms LSD psychedelic MDMA MDMA for example yeah it's supposed to be good for the billion MDMA is not banned because it's dangerous it's dangerous because it's bound to 74 people in the UK died of MDMA last year every single one of those deaths is because it's an unregulated product people deserve to have safe products they deserve to have the right advice so I understand what you're saying you're saying the drugs should be more healthy and see if they checked if it were legalized then they were more checked whether it be less deaths yes absolutely so when I take them because ah I do a lot we do a lot of studying on psychedelics again with the DMT in em the mushrooms and it can open the main the pineal gland same with ayahuasca I'm drug free but the CIA Wang asked us our plant this well you take out and because of the DMT Anna it's like ten to eight years off aap what it brings over to trauma to the surface and then this is a the medical cure plan a little shortcut but for me anything you take externalist though I stopped a drug do not mean it's totally cool so what would you say for like em weed for instance how would you feel as after they legalized weed in New York here well I think it's it's urgent actually it's urgent that we regulate all the drugs because the the illicit market for drugs is corrupting our entire system it's corrupting the whole society it's corrupting the police the legal system people are dying and less people will die if all the drugs are regulated so yeah start with cannabis definitely there's between various estimates but between 3 and 5 million people using kind of s probably in the UK and now if you look at it this way homosexuality used to be illegal in this country used to be illegal people to prison for it and that's not so distant in our past the illegality ended and the stigma started to go and now generally we accept it's not cool to be prejudiced against people of a gay yeah there are significant there are probably twice as many people using cannabis then there are homosexuals in this country so we're talking about a lot of people who make a personal choice about their own health in their own body should we be prejudiced against those people or should we just make things as safe as possible for them I think is is trying to make everything as safe as possible but I also think it's good to make people understand that as more things and life that you can do to get to a higher state meditation breathing exercises teach you a higher state than other drugs as well and it's more natural and I've said that many podcasts the scientists that I study on sex alcohol psychedelics and meditation and meditation was all they wanted to eat a higher state and it was internal so Hank more people need to understand meditation even breathing techniques believe anymore it sends better oxygen to the brain the gut where you can handle more anxiety fear depression sorts trying to understand how imbalance but it's scary to think that the majority people to understand violence they don't understand moderation do not mean absolutely and I do agree with you and learning about moderation is important but at the moment that conversation is impossible because the conversation is you're not allowed to do that do you think if drugs were legalized more people less people would take them I think when when if drugs were all legally regulated some drugs would be taken significantly less for example heroin the most dangerous of drugs because you would only ever have a medical model for heroin like we used to in the UK you know there's a time in some people's living memory when we had that what we call the British system which was the last resistance to american-style prohibition and that meant that if you problem with heroin you went to the doctor and you got given heroin not methadone as you mentioned methadone is much more harmful to the health and heroin but what that means is if you're giving someone err away from a doctor it means that there's no incentive for that person to well they're not being exploited by organized crime and they've not got organized crime trying to get them to find new customers so we add an epidemic because it was banned No so the besson as soon as you get control of it you'd have much less people having heroin you'd have less people using crack cocaine yeah so see that what legalized drugs see someone get to eight years to do for drug dealing they legalize drugs next week what would harm to the people who were unpleasant for drugs well that's a really important question and I would like to direct it to people who've been arrested for possession because an important part of reform is to make sure that those people who've got criminal record for possessing cannabis for possessing MDMA that they have their records expunged because people should not have their job prospects ruined for a criminal for a conviction for drugs and part of ending that criminalization is to make sure that people don't suffer for this terrible policy that we've had for decades as for the drug dealing that's a different conversation because it's it's difficult to expunge those kind of records and of course a lot of people have been in violent involved in violence to do it so I think you would have to look you'd have to take time and look at every case individually so when did you from somebody who went undercover to stop the war on drugs and then to know like one it legalized for people understand and he'll with who saved it is they get a different flip of the coin how did that come about well that's because I realized that everything I was doing trying to police drugs was futile but then I realized that it was actually much worse than futile and that by the action of placing drugs I was part of the mechanism that was constantly making society more violent beat drugs being banned means ever increasing violence to control the trade it's as simple as that it always has been about that same as alcohol prohibition in America that's why we get an increase in violence there whole sections of community who can't talk to the place because organized crime runs our community you you know the kind of places I'm talking about so how did it please treat you know that you're speaking out about this and it's came they went Phil softcore howdy you're like a black sheep are you like blackballed did I speak to you are you a no Seder how do you get treated well that's that that's the interesting because in 2015 when I first start speaking out I got I mean I got I was public enemy number one to the covert criminals I'm [ __ ] police because as far as as far as some sort of drugs covert police was concerned I was a whistleblower I was like in secrets out I mean you know that's the whistleblowing book I'm admitting to all sorts of stuff in the area and you know I was I was really public enemy number one close friend of mine was given a lawful order to never speak to me again and they ordered her to remove me from her social media and phone at that moment you know that's how harsh things were but things have changed drastically and actually in the UK it's police which are leading the reform debate now know I'm part of an international organization rapidly growing international organization called the law enforcement Action Partnership in the UK we're called leap UK we have members everywhere former chief constables other undercover cops like me former mi5 prison governors we've got a brilliant member in Scotland Jim Duffy so there's a lot of us and we're growing and we've had an influence and now we've got police and crime commissioners and senior police talking about the same things that we've been saying for years and you've got a police like in Durham Cleveland Birmingham talking about using policing money to actually prescribe heroin too problematic heroin users to reduce crime to take the market away from organized crime you know the senior police's to chief constables talking about this so police are actually leading the reform debate and this is in spite of politicians not because of them so seeming you're an undercover as well did you ever see some depict that I pass will see it was a big parcel or maybe packing up guns did you know about what they were packing up but you had to let them go because you know was gone Elite even bigger things yeah yeah quite often now and there's times when I've been threatened with a gun in fact I was told to strip naked by the burger bar boys and they lifted up the shirt and showed me this automatic pistol tucked into the trousers and we took the view actually to keep quiet about that to be honest because we wouldn't we didn't have the evidence against everyone at that time and if we'd actually pushed the alarm button and gun chasing them for that gun we wouldn't have got to the end of the operation so there was always that kind of decision so you had to get all the answers before you could make a move yeah so if you've seen what happens if you've seen someone model or someone but yeah if there was a hundred people that potentially could get president got it Pleasant and that one muddler could jeopardize that whole operation with that still being pulled the plug want to get the full answers our murder would have pulled the plug of the operation straightaway because there is nothing more serious than a murder so that would have been the end and what about the panic button did you have something on you were you wild that often no no I mean I I would wear a camera or recording device only one sign I was confident I'd built up some trust with the people so at the star you know I might get searched I had nothing on me at all though yeah so mentally even speaking about it there's a bring back a lot of emotions for you the diggings I eat the algae fuel fame no I'm a I'm a bit on edge to be honest but it's unpredictable I mean PTSD some days I have a terrible day all the days I can deal with it absolutely fine I must struggle a bit tomorrow drained VT any cannabis oils or for your PTSD EDTA any sort I don't know I mean I wish that cannabis did did suit me to be honest because I know it helps quite a few other people with PTSD and I wish it did unfortunately I get much more relief for alcohol so I have to be really careful not to drink too much yeah certainly when I first got my PTSD symptoms I was drinking huge amounts like ridiculous amounts so I balanced I came to forget came though well it's surprisingly effective for PTSD it just you know just numb yeah that plays it moment but the next year problems 100 things was always that offend yeah I mean I love another drink you know the drinking people I mean you know that's problematic as there is no more what meditation Robert ayahuasca do you know what I do yeah it's yeah it's DMT combined with them with MAO inhibitor yeah it's yeah it's something I might consider at some point well I went to Costa Rica there em and we made a documentary on ayahuasca absolutely I see what three people were suicidal and who are homeless some people kind of just I made the changes in the sacrifices we found me I thought that myself but some that's difficult some people need that we were shot they say ayahuasca is a shortcut I asked as a tea for anybody watching it's a tea you drank the ceremony we were done had lost 60 70 people you take the tea and for the Evers they say all your pain and trauma comes to the surface and you deal were oak they say it's a shortcut to depression anxiety the people who were on the documentary who are heroin addicts am sure said oh what a cancer patients as well who they say ayahuasca can the the CST has been here for thousands and thousands of years as a plant based medicine that and it changed his life this year as his freefall weeks ago out they say that sudden you start feeling the effects for me personally I've still not had that medical yet or that effect where you're opposed to feeling like 'no see a tree connects you if you're so a lot of people heard that there you ask an accurate place just know the feeling army is in the best i've ever feel a lot of people PTSD they same as that medical plan as a full yet i don't know for yet the answers will be when i follow those people on two three months to see if the storm a good place as a placebo fake i can it play also weather believe in it so much that they can track that brain and to believe in that they're cured which is a great thing also so yeah and i'm home that if these people can then maybe ayahuasca or something like yourself can because it's [ __ ] scary when I was taking ayahuasca I was in hill for two or three days I wasn't seen fine the Ceylon open de sinaloa measured in pain but the sea take on your ancestors pain your family's pain and you really saw oh that's funny cuz I've actually mean my mom used to create arguing fake wait a lobby since I've been back it's been there's been the chemists it's been in and many many years maybe that's one of the factors I don't know but that's interesting yeah it's something that's potentially I don't know as the medical but a lot of people seem to be going to was that morning more and more well it's interesting cuz you back up my point that drug use is a natural human thing and that's been humans have done it for thousands of years in various means you know whether it's people queuing that chewing the coca leaf in South America or people taking ayahuasca but in terms of psychedelics there's now lots of good scientific evidence that many of them have benefits so psilocybin for example has had some success in treating what what's called untreatable depression and that's remarkable because it's peepees it's rescuing people from a constant hell and there is evidence of that work so it's going it's now been licensed for further yeah again that as always shortcuts but those men like a guy called Joe Dispenza who what's been the main set who believes the main can change anything and your board they just with the belief and their the consistency of believing and tracking the brain the brain doesn't know what's real or fake so you can track your Velen to be energized in refocus and even if you look at monk so if you look at other people who meditate every day they don't take the other stuff to get that enlightenment either so there's always but no matter what we sat and talked there's always going to be both sides of the coin Oh totally yeah and it's what works for anybody I'm not as what works for you but as long as you're not hotly anybody as long as you're you're feeling great from and yet if you've got lessen what human beings if you have two bad days like you're gonna have tomorrow then go and have free and forget this everything and maned I believe a lot of people concentrating the things I have and go instead to the things they have go but going through a trauma like I say often a lot of people who are homeless have get PTSD from you have been in the army police officers and it's a whole list of different people with different backgrounds you also said that your life was in danger a few times how close were you really getting killed oh really close I mean I've got a samurai sword to my throat and knifes threaten mine eyes many times I suppose the closest was though when I was in Leicester it was right at the end of the operation and a gangster had bought heroin from right at the start had not got him on camera because I hadn't been wearing a camera at that point so I wanted to get him out but he wasn't dealing hands-on he was sending other people out so I thought well I tempt him out by getting some counterfeit clothing so I got some fake Stone Island Jackie's got hold of the true customs and put a phone call in it's not I've got these jackets here interested it so we came to meet me he knew me trusted me but the trouble is he brought two of his mates with him to see these jackets as in this secluded carpark in Leicester and he says well you know just want to sell these jackets oh do you want something while you're here and I says well I laughs and why if you carry my so it gets this massive block of cut of crack which is like bigger than a VHS dirt her box sits in the front of his car and starts carving it up the meanwhile one of his mates looks me up and down and says hey how long have you known him he's suddenly suspicious of me and he starts pushing me up against this wall and start searching my clothes and it's not James Bond tag it's not stop sophisticated he looks in this button he finds the camera in the book I think I'm in trouble here and he says Spoony man East five-o he's [ __ ] heat man I always look at these people thinking you know you're not old enough to have seen Hawaii five-o I've no idea but anyway says he's five oh man he's [ __ ] Heat so what I did is I knew that if he could convince the guy that knew me in the car that I was a cop I was I was dead so I just launched into this abusive tirade at him I said what are you [ __ ] doing picking at my clothes you [ __ ] this and just swearing up to him took the jacket off him and started folding it really slowly really slow putting it in the bargain constant stream of abuse so he couldn't get a word in edgeways but also he's a bit stunned thinking hang on have I seen what I've seen what's going on here I didn't expect this his main [ __ ] on yeah mine [ __ ] him yeah so I carried on with this dream and I'm walked as slowly as I could given him this abuse walking away cuz anything around yeah you run away from walls and they run after you yeah I was been really really slow and I got halfway across this carpark and heard this running behind me I think in our he's managed to convince him I'm thinking if I could get one punch it and then lug it I'll turn around and it's the gangster that I know and he says I don't mind my mate he's a [ __ ] don't you want this ting I'm thinking you really want to sell me crack now anyway I said yeah you may is a [ __ ] he's been picking at my clothes it's not even my jacket and I give him this 20 quid all captured on the camera in an exchange and his mate is screaming at him I'm telling you he's [ __ ] 5o he's got a camera but obviously he's not listening so he starts going back to the car I'm thinking I can't believe I've got away with this no I got near to the on track see at the car park and hear the squealing of the wheels I'm thinking okay he's convinced him now and this car comes zooming after me so I think where I've just got a leg it now I get to the road and onto this pavement and I start running towards the traffic Ireland and you know where the traffic island splits and you get a metal barrier I'm separating and I thought I'd just sprint for that and this car is coming after me on the pavement just zooming after me and I get to this metal railing and it's screech screeches and it stops about a centimeter from the railing must have been within a meter of hitting me so then I carried on walking thinking I've got I've got away from them they're going around the roundabout and revving the engine but then quite a short distance I could cut across to a pedestrian area so I was quite saved quite quickly so I got back to the safe location the debrief site and you know told the team told the Intel guard the car registration number the description he went away few moments later he came back laughing he says I don't know why they didn't just in shoot you because his loads of intelligence that they've got a gun in that car so when so yeah that was leading you though they don't think what the [ __ ] man doing oh it terrified me Charlie with that was that was a that was that was a genuinely scary day the Jeff will be up the skies he's like the fake mustaches the wags did you do that stuff I was like just the way you look just know just different claws just different clothes yeah I mean you know when I first started I used to dress a bit like a Scully jump that word in Scotland so drastic a Scully like full trucky Nike Air Max trainers you know no disrespect to anyone listening to this who's really into their sports have it making much [Laughter] later on I found that actually I got more intros if I look like I was really struggling and living in squat yeah it's like that so did you ever walk alone I was always alone was the job of a partner most of the time I worked alone and I prefer to work alone to be honest because you know you can be in charge of you know exactly what you're gonna say if you're on your own and you don't have to account for what someone else said having said that I did work with other people at times and I work with some extremely talented people as well very talented yeah so obviously going through all that life what made you quit what was the breaking point well Jack Atlas to go [ __ ] that's enough Sun off awaits in Brighton and I got a vision of the future in Brighton because the cops down there were unpleasant bullying characters you know I've worked with some good professional people around the country I got to Brighton and they would they were not professional at all they've been overusing the tactic to the point where organized crime had adapted and they what they done to adapt is that you were using homeless people as their point of contact and what they were saying to the homeless people is you bring anyone near to us though we don't know and we're gonna kill you and they were telling people who they already had killed and they were naming people who died of who've been listed as down of overdoses now I can't say for sure that there were casual murders going on what I can say is that the overdose rates in Brighton were higher than anywhere else in the country by a long way and there were lots of people on the streets who were convinced that were casual murders going on is just to control people and intimidate people and I could see quite clearly then when I reviewed the work that I'd done through my undercover career that this was a situation created by policing drugs there was no that violence wasn't there until we tried harder and ramped up the drug war and it's never it's never going to end until we legally regulate drugs that violence is never going to end the corruption is never going to end and I found myself in an untenable position how can I carry on in the police you know I tried I stopped undercover work and I stayed in the police for a while I became a detective sergeant but I just became more and more troubled by the fact that I'd come to these conclusions I understood this I understood that the problems was caused by prohibition of drugs you know it we've got the chicken in the act the wrong way around we've caused this problem and understanding that I just found myself in an untenable position and distress customer you know Jake was my back-to-front and the kind of things that were going on and yeah well world becomes a good guys no bad gangs anymore you came there get lost and came the gore what the [ __ ] am i doing your question of lephant the question of the finish everything yeah absolutely because you know so much of policing is about drug policy you know you arrest a burglar who's got a problem with heroin and actually I know that if he'd been prescribed heroin he wouldn't be Bergling if he looked after him and prescribed that drug to him he wouldn't broken in someone's house and you made a good point earlier on that about exploiting vulnerable people you know the vulnerable people are being exploited by the criminals and the police I exploited the same people the gangsters were exploited and that people caught in the crossfire and there's that we don't need to do this we can do things differently we know we can do things what do you think then we should do then do you think it should for educating people kazejin ologist power and educating people should start at the schooling to understanding things about more for kids to maybe have a better opportunities and understanding what is that we speak about drugs at school do we even speak about drugs and saying just kill me but there are as years maybe when you're 15 16 should we be took getting teaching kids as young as five insects that about drank and drugs and the risks and the health and safety and stuff like that and getting a better understanding life do you think maybe schooling should change some the collector room how do you see that what curriculum like a little collectible do you think that should maybe some things you get put in place to change to educate the kids for a bit of future yes quite definitely but it comes back to legal regulation we can only educate about drugs when we know what's in the drugs because otherwise but if you unless you regulate drugs education just comes down to just say no and we know that just say no doesn't work so what we need to teach people is harm reduction we need to teach people to make healthy choices and you can only do that if you know what's in the drugs you can only do that about MDMA really if you can buy it from a licensed pharmacy then you know that each dose is not 0.86 a gram you can only do that if you've got the right labeling yeah you can only do that you can only start talking that the kids about that if you've got a regulated product but if the regulator do not think there's always zombie from the darkest a to it make another drug that wouldn't be legalized that stronger than [ __ ] you got more just to you to get more involved and you want min the king that operation on opportunity well no well no actually because there's clear evidence that that we're a regulated drug is available people will use the safer commodity so I'll give you an example of where a dirty drug the market for a dirty drug would disappear or for the most part disappear that's spice no spice synthetic cannabinoids is a product of the prohibition of cannabis if cannabis had legally have been legally regulated 15 years ago there would be no spice on our streets it was created as a cheap alternative to cannabis it's become much more um it's not it's not anything like cannabis now it's an extreme drug but you know people die from spicy if people really did want to do spice there are versions of spice which don't kill people why do you think that they're free in Scotland's as at the old time high just no on drugs well I would say that Westminster policy centralized policy has got a lot to do with it and Scotland like most nations has its own particular problems with drugs and Scotland needs to be able to control its own drug policy I would say it's it's an aspect of government which needs devolving now Scotland have taken decisions or wanted to take decisions that evidence says would save lives so for example they wanted a drug consumption room in Glasgow all the evidence is there to support that a drug consumption room would save lives and help people get into services it's a way of taking care of people but that decision was blocked by Westminster it's blocked by the English government it's Kalei but again success leaves clues in Portugal I'll lead them by example they are clay Murray the addiction issues have brought massively the biggest in the world so why I would not fall in the footsteps of places like Portugal it's politicians are nervous of colleges Glee there I don't I don't know I mean I've got to know a lot of politicians and I have a very old-fashioned view about politicians as a good politician sterber honest I don't know what I see I just don't think was enough he'll before people and they can't make the changes to get the hill for people well there are good politicians in the UK now there are good ones in England there are good ones in Scotland Ronny Cowen for example is one example of a brilliant morning in Scotland is the MP for inre client and he's a fantastic advocate for drug law reform and there are there are many others across party you know it's not just this issue doesn't belong to one party and there are growing numbers of politicians who are looking at the example of Portugal and my organization UK we spend a lot of time speaking to politicians and what we can do is we give a politician confidence because you know will you if the cops are saying it you know we've got their back seven wing it backs up what they're saying so there is a shift in politics Portugal is a good example and the most important aspect of Portugal is that they used to have drug deaths higher than Scotland now they only have three deaths per million in the in the UK overall we have 60 deaths per million so that's an enormous difference so we should be following them straight away but what I would say is that Portugal is not the perfect system because organized crime still still runs a supply you know people don't get sent to prison this is decriminalized so possession doesn't get people a criminal record but people still have to go to gangsters to buy them and stuff so they still have the corruption and you know that corruption is only going in one direction the changes making changes can't put an effect of driving numbers though in Glasgow was Frank mutlar capital on leave capital of Europe and maybe five six years ago a few year back and they've massively dropped those numbers so making changes it does come an effect but they need to make the changes now in Scotland and England because people losing a leaf was a younger dog in Glasgow 1617 eggs they see it dead and and that shot scared it it scares me because I took so many drugs when I was young I don't think that was strong no but a scary cause I fear for my kids I feel thump to seeing all these kids in if and it just the fact I having a good time and it's Garret if I can get that phone call to see you've lost a loved one so if we are sailing you're gone forward for the future obviously you're an activist and you're doing you're doing great things and I'm quite surprised actually a mobs that undercover stuff to making that and speaking so openly and honestly so going forward for the future what do you see yourself doing and what changes would you like to see on place I've been going I mean my future I see a future of just continuing to campaign for whatever incremental change we can get you know we heroin assisted treatment heroin prescribing move on urgently drug consumption rooms we need urgently legalizing the cannabis market regulating it urgently to protect children from the drug and to protect children organized crime and then we need to regulate the rest you know MDMA that took the girls 17 year old who died in Scotland I was 18 the park yeah I was like one of the transmat I think yeah that's it that's happening too often and that would not happen if the drugs were regulated so they said this is urgent people are dying now so my organization will keep expanding and we will keep speaking to politicians but actually more important than politicians is the social movement so I mentioned the social movement to end the criminalizing of homosexuality earlier there's a very clear parallel here that didn't that law didn't change because politicians decided from the top that law changed because of social movement from the bottom and the same thing is going to happen with drug law reform so if anyone out there finds himself agreeing with me and agreeing with leap UK that we need to regulate the drug supply we need drug law reform we need decriminalization we need to save lives then please support us on social media or as your social media well on Twitter and Instagram we are at UK leap okay on Facebook we are leap UK we'll put the links for people you see you on the yeah on nobody else well great so I mean supporters and just try and pass this on and explain to other people please do read the books but you use them use them as a tool because that's why I did them really will you ever make a fuss book and that's the first we frost but good cop/bad war and get me a buddy but antral for those four people go and buy it well that's a memoir that's that's all of the dangerous situations I got into the people are met all the things that happened to me and and you know the reasons why I came to the conclusions that are dead drug wars is it's a history as I whistle blown book no that's the whistleblowing but it was a good cop/bad well yeah yeah that's the first one drug there is some whistleblowing in drug wars because as the chapter from a guy called Frank Matthews who explains about the extent of police corruption but that's a history book essentially but they're both tools really I mean thankfully people have told me that they enjoy them which is good but they're tools and it's information that you can use to help grow that social movement yeah because I was all of a sudden you were coming on I've been watching a lot your stuff there's so many if I do is your vote they are speaking out and being open and honest it's a refreshing also obviously it's a satin van X undercover corporal and doing that King that stuff arises it's good that yeah try it our waking people and trying to help people from the drug culture especially another leaf that your warden the you Raylan a.m. give me a one of the stories from this bit a quick story get people intrigued okay well I told you about Frank Matthews the guy who who had to run away from the map because he was whistleblowing and corrupt cops but I'll tell you something that which there's a chapter where we wanted to try and make it clear to people the cause and effect of burning drugs and how it's how the changes happened over time so we went to Liverpool and we interviewed three gangsters from Liverpool one was the right on one of Curtis Warren famous gangster first one who got into the Sunday Times Rich List as a gangster but of course organized crime had got better at hiding their money since that so he got into dealing heroin in the 1970s second one got into organized crime in the 1990s under the 10th of the 90s when organized crime became more corporate and international a bit more slick and the third one was a 16 year old boy who had escaped county lines drug-dealing and perhaps the most interesting question we asked these three the first one we said we asked them each of them how easy was it for you to get a gun as a young bloke getting into organized crime and the first one said well I could have asked and I could have got taken to the higher-ups that was his phrase not mine could have gone to the higher-ups and I would have had to explain exactly why I needed a gun and they would have listened to me patiently and then they would have said no don't be so stupid why would you want to draw attention to yourself and to me by using a gun if you got a beef with someone go toe-to-toe with them fight it out second gangster next generation it says well we knew that if we had a beef with another another gang you know some someone over territory something we knew we had automatic weapons we'd get to if we had to but we'd never like youngsters up them that'll be stupid so 16 year old he said well I'd need a couple of hours in fact he said the last time I needed a gun I went to the guy and he says I've just sold my last one for today but I've got a hand grenade if you want that and he says oh yeah okay then he was 15 at the time and he took that hand grenade home and add it in his sock drawer ready to deal with the next person who came to his house work and there was a and that was just a territorial disagreement over drug-dealing territory the reason he wanted a gun is because someone had come into his house had slashed his father across the face almost caught his eye Oh can't go to the place because he's part of that community so we've gone in a time in some people's living memory from heroin being controlled by a doctor with a prescription pad to 15 year olds with hungry needs and so we can show quite clearly the change over time the cause and effect there was no problem with drugs until they were banned and if we treat it as a health issue then those problems will really go away fingers crossed and do you has anybody you ever put away ever spoke to you maybe try it makes sound crazy but anybody you've ever put away for drugs and obviously what you're doing no too high later have you ever been in contact with anybody maybe for they may change our lives to maybe start working with you to also help with a problem that we have just know yeah I've spoken to a lot I haven't I haven't spoken to anyone who I've put inside that would be interesting I would like to someday but I have met with lots of people who are former prisoners loads of people who are former drug dealers who who are very helpful you know we're on the same side we want to explain to people the reality of these things and try and get some policy changes so yeah we will work with anybody yeah it's and normal even the criminals have her I've had on who had dodgy pastors always messages and the podcast for people to pack up and listen to i don't glorify anyone I don't certainly [ __ ] make it as FS as I leave to be but there's always may excuse for people with backup well as spiritually mentally physically if you listen clear there's always messages and I think obviously over the rip what going down with do you see do you see the problem getting worse just know before it gets better lucy fink wanting to start to change drastically I believe the power of the people the voice of the people so powerful if everybody gets together on starts making a statement that okay we've got a problem here they stuck by each other do you think from now is going to get even worse or do you think things need to [ __ ] me changes no to improve this and help people to better life well I mean in terms of drug policy it's urgent we need change now we need it but it is I'm afraid it is gonna get worse and what's going to get worse is the exploitation of children the county lines you know if you've heard a counter you aren't you I mean you know you could get Liverpool kids going up to Aberdeen to deal heroin and crack that's going to get worse and it's the tip of the iceberg now there's an estimated 10,000 kids doing this now in a Yukiya in the UK yeah now we have to understand that it's part of the cause and in fact we have to that the reason organized-crime are exploiting children well that's my fault as well that's my fault that's the fault of people like me because the police are good at catching drug dealers when I caught the burger bar boys I caught all those 96 people they were all adults they were all hands on with the money they went to some of them went to jail for 10 years apiece so the natural strategic response to that kind of police success is to exploit children because children can't be infiltrated by normal police informants they can't be as easily influenced elated by undercover cops they're disposable they're easily easily manipulated and they're cheap labor that would not have happened if police hadn't had those series of successes you know the first drug dealers when the misuse of Drugs Act came in in the 1970s they weren't thinking Oh one day we'll all be exploiting kids that are laughed at you they wouldn't a thought that would happen but it was still in Ewa it was still inevitable and that's what we have to understand when we see these terrible things happening it's a natural progression over time things will always get worse until we take power away from organized crime by regulating the drug markets yeah new there's been an absolute pleasure your story's is phenomenal it's been out a lot of course sir and we're asking people buy your books all of the normal outlets and Amazon Amazon yeah would you like to finish up on anything before we go um just to reiterate please pass this on please get people talking about it and if you agree please support us perfect new and Watson fine I think it ain't become doing blood on yeah good luck with everything thank you thank you

Channel: Anything Goes With James English

Views: 425,111

Keywords: #under cover cop, #police, #whistle blower, #podcast

Id: Fo8L8q3zKxg

Length: 91min 42sec (5502 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 25 2019