This is Richard Brunstrom. He is Chief Constable of North Wales. He's also quite barking mad. On his days off he likes to go catching speeding motorists 'for fun'. His latest wheeze is to sanction plans for a vending machine outside Colwyn Bay Police Station, which will dispense needles to drug addicts. He also wants to provide a steel bin for used needles. The scheme will be paid for by the Welsh Assembly (actually, it's the poor bloody UK taxpayer who will be footing the bill as usual). Why don't they just go the whole hog and provide free shots of heroin too?
The most depressing thing is that nothing will be done about this cretin. A proper government would quickly give him the boot. Or empower the people to do it.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to live in a world where people dont use drugs but they do. This is merely the police maintaining public saftey by providing a secure disposal point and hopefully reducing the chance of HIV infection.
ReplyDeleteSo long as he is planning on spending time on cracking down on the local dealers too I dont see the problem with this approach
Yes. Why not, indeed?
ReplyDeleteHeroin addiction -> theft, burglary, etc. By prescribing heroin, we could reduce huge amounts of other crime.
To your main point. Would you rather have addicts sharing needles, contracting hepatitis and HIV, etc, and dumping the needles in playgrounds and parks?
Brunstrom is a loud-mouthed looney. I have followed his progress through the police service since listening to him speak at a conference in 1999 and he has shown the same headline-seeking tendencies in every post.
ReplyDeleteMoney's better spent apprehending offenders against society and banging them up. Let the druggies attend to their own health.
ReplyDeleteAs a (genuine) Colwyn Bay resident I can confidently say that its a great idea.
ReplyDeleteThe quicker we supply drugs along with the needles the better. Benefits include:
- Fantastic drop in local crime rate.
- Police able to keep track of all addicts.
- Dealers put out of business.
- Nasty needles kept away from children.
There's the added benefit of later on, when all drug takers are using the new service, of upping the quality to a fatal dose: rapid increase in the IQ of the local population.
It could become a model across the whole country.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Ian,
ReplyDeleteIsn't it bad enought that there are drug addicts in Colwyn Bay? Do you really want them to contract HIV too? Would that save the taxpayer money?
Besides which, their MP might find it a bit dodgy to wander arond hisw constiuency wearing his £6,000 Rolex
North Wales Police are possibly the most ridiculous force in Britain (Nottinghamshire are a close second), they're the ones who keep making ludicrous fishing expeditions to try and catch people who are guilty of Taffophobia, the Prime Minister was questioned by them over his "fucking Welsh" comment a Daily Mail journalist was sent a letter about some anti-Welsh comments made on Question Time, despite the fact that she hadn't been on the programme.
ReplyDeleteThey've also acquired from the Sun, the nickname "The Traffic Taleban" for over zealous persecution of motorists.
All in all this is sane in comparison to their other exploits.
To be honest I have no problem with this idea.
ReplyDeleteAs Alan pointed out people will shoot heroin whether we approve of it or not. Why not help to cut the HIV and hepatitis infection rate? Should we force these people to use dirty needles? They are going to shoot up whether we approve or not!
If they are willing to accept needle help from the authorities who says the next step is not to accept help in recovery and getting themselves clean.
To demonise a Chief Constable just because he has an idea that may be slightly radical or liberal is shooting oneself in the foot. He has an idea that may actually have a real effect on addicts and is not just paying lip service to the idea. Locking these people up probably would not help. Why not try the alternative. Just once!
This is a simple needle exchange, every person who contracts hepatitis or AIDs/HIV forces a huge drain on NHS resources in both the cost of drugs and care in a hospital.
ReplyDeleteIf addicts can exchange needles they are less likely to dump used ones and that may remove the danger to non drug users from needles left where ever drug users go to get their fix.
I can think of worse things he has suggested.
Ross F said... "They've also acquired from the Sun, the nickname "The Traffic Taleban" for over zealous persecution of motorists."
ReplyDeleteWe welcome all contributions to the local economy from our visitors. The police even kindly publish where and when the "Arrive Alive" speed trap vans are in our area, just so that we all know :)
mattd - Awwww! Let's help the addicts before we help the taxpayers! Their self-indulgence means everything to us! Let's spend years "rehabilitating" criminals rather than giving them a good thrashing and telling them if they come back, they'll get three times the lashings.
ReplyDeleteGod knows, drug addicts are the most important people on the planet and every other social consideration should take second place to catering to their fecklessness.
I have a better idea for this police chief/moron (actually this phrase itself is becoming an oxymoron, sadly) - start protecting the taxpaying citizenry and let the druggies take care of themselves. Arrest them. Bang them up. Forget therapy programmes. Getting over drugs is about the same as getting over smoking. Big deal.
How did these people get elevated over the rest of society? Not through their own efforts, that's for sure. Through do-gooder programmes run by lefty, destructive know-it-alls and financed by people who were being robbed in their homes and their streets by thugs wanting to buy drugs.
Morning Iain,
ReplyDeleteVerity said…
‘Money's better spent apprehending offenders against society and banging them up. Let the druggies attend to their own health’.
Spot on. Perhaps we could also have a plain-clothes copper who can go behind the pub where all the meagre but personal belongings stolen from me and Mrs S., are being flogged, and pay a few quid (which I’ll gladly give him), so we can get ‘em all back.
If I go down there, I’ll be arrested on suspicion of ‘trying to be reasonable’.
You forgot to mention he is a Druid, just completing the picture of a well-rounded personality. We have a family ban on trips to Wales, having been fined and lost points for doing 74 in a 70 mph zone on an empty road. The Chief Druid was probably was holding the speed gun. Please, oh please, when the revolution comes can we reintroduce the police to activities such as investigating and prosecuting real crimes against real people?
ReplyDeleteA product of New labour
ReplyDeleteI well remember this moron had 'likes the power' as a reason for him liking his job in a Q adn A on the official North Wales Police website...says it all really. And of course his daughter gets off speeding raps unlike the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteSee what he says in his blog:
"In Colwyn Bay Nimbyism has resulted in pressure amounting almost to blackmail on the local chemists, such that all have withdrawn from the scheme. The needle exchange bus has been subject of demonstrations which have descended into violence from the protestors, requiring police attendance. There is a very nasty streak of intolerance in the area, much of it led or orchestrated by a handful of local representatives.
The result is that there is no effective needle exchange scheme in Colwyn Bay, an area that needs it badly. So I am attempting to provide one, despite the Nimbys. "
How tolerant and how nice that he treats his public with such disdain! It is not public misgivings or the democratic will of the people that concerns him...
The website has removed the Q and A as well - wonder why?
Mattd,
ReplyDeleteWell summed up. I'm sure most people are unaware that needle exchange goes on across the whole of the UK and is essential.
This initiative illustrates the morphing of our Police Force into a branch of the Social Welfare Department. Examples of this abound in all police forces. How and why has this happened? I suppose we can find parrallels in the education system. Teachers don't teach they act as social workers for the children of dysfunctional parents. Come back Miss Jean Brodie. Come back Dixon.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but think this is preferable to needle-sharing or finding discarded sharps in public areas.
ReplyDeleteRead Brunstrom's, rather logical, justification:
http://www.north-wales.police.uk/nwp/public/en/blogs/viewblog.asp?UID=1&CID=43
I'm not a legal beagle, so can someone help, please?
ReplyDeleteQuestion 1 - Is 'shooting' heroin a legal or an illegal activity?
Question 2 - If it is illegal, then isn't supplying the equipment being an accessory before the fact?
Question 3 - If the answer to Question 2 is "Yes", then Brunstrom should be so charged, surely?
Or are the police above the Law?
Illegal or not people can get drugs if they want them. Why not dispense them outside the nick too?
ReplyDeleteHope all this equipment will have bilingual signage as is the norm in Wales.
Just as worrying, the Police Authority, which includes elected councillors of course, must be satisfied with their Chief's strange sense of purpose. One wonders whether the Force's rank and file are content too? CCs can be ejected from their posts; it's just happened in the Devon & Cornwall Force, where Maria Wallace was ditched for losing the rank and file's confidence (and that of the Authority).
ReplyDeleteThe policeman sounds like a good guy.
ReplyDeleteCatching speeding motorists means that the law is enforced. If you don't like being caught speeding, don't speed. Or vote for a political party that will abolish the speed limits.
As for the needles, I'm suprised you take such a view Iain. The cost of the needles is minimal but the cost of treating a scumbag who's injected themselves with HIV is a lot higher. And the cost of treating a child who picks up a needle found outside their front door is a lot higher. Needle exchanges work, even if the state aiding drug takers is not so appealing, but the state treats many with self-inflicted problems from alcoholics, the obese. And the police can watch the dopers from their office window and monitor them.
That'll make Colwyn Bay nick a nice friendly place for the non-smackhead community, won't it?
ReplyDeleteHaven't enough coastal towns have been ruined by turning them into junkie service centres?
Oh and why not use all this taxpayers cash to fund the rehab facilities that actually get people off drugs?
Actually I know the answer to that one: It's because maintaining a growing population of drug addicts creates more job opportunities for parasites like Brunstrom.
I too have no problem with the idea of giving needles away, to reduce HIV or other infection. Think how much a free needle costs (pennies), and conversely how much it goes to treat someone with AIDS or another ghastly disease (tens of thousands per year).
ReplyDeleteWe need to eliminate English taxpayer funding for the Welsh language, though.
The issue is more complex than some of these comments, should you provide support structures for drug addicts outside rehab i.e. free needles and safe disposal or make access to such drugs equipment more difficult. Providing needles will not reduce associated crime or put dealers out of business, the addicts will still need to resort to crime to pay for the heroin in their now "free" needles. On balance, we should make life difficult for drug addicts/criminals and not provide needles. This may cause some ancilliary HIV infection, but the addict may already be infected and lives a lifestyle that makes them prone to HIV/Hepititis. Their addiction will be linked to a criminal lifestyle and we should not make it easier for them. Heaven forbid, Brundstrom could try arresting them and perhaps the DPP prosecuting them for their crimes? Isn't that the role of the police. Whatever next, will they be handing out condoms to women so that they can't get pregnant if they are raped. Its basically the same logic.
ReplyDelete"Should we force these people to use dirty needles?"
ReplyDeleteYes, it might teach them a lesson.
Besides, I'm sure taxpayers wouldn't want their money spent on this.
For the record I actually favour total drug legalisation. But this use of public money is unacceptable.
In a recent post on the North Wales Police blogs, the Deputy Chief Constable showed the high regard he has for his boss, Chief Constable Brunstrom:
ReplyDelete"Leaving Brunstrom to man the bridge over the weekend, I took the Missus up to the Lake District for a long weekend."
North Wales Police blogs
The bins will prevent those infected needles from hanging around where others can be injured by them.
ReplyDeleteAs for giving junkies heroin -- please do. It is cheaper and more pleaseant to pay tax than to get burglared or mugged.
Besides that, you cannot stop the drrug 'business' from happening, so, the state should take the monopoly on in and remove the large revenue for assorted mafias that stem from it (and OUR homes and cars)
Meanwhile, the people who need heroin to die in dignity instead of a rage of agony screams have their relatives go out on the street to score, because you can get a heroin prescription, but can't fill it in the pharmacies.
It's a mad mad world!
(and please DO research heroin a little bit, you'll see that beneath the hype, there is no big deal at all. Heroin addicts on a legal supply can function normally and hold down jobs and have families, what creates the problem is the impurities mixed in by the gangsters, and that the mafias in the UK have a billion pound market, which then feeds back into Islamist pockets (since the stuff comes from Afghanistan).
The reason that this idea is wrong is because the man who supports it is not being consistent. He supports the poor heroin user, but hounds the general motorist. How can he justify it?
ReplyDeleteMaybe because it gets him in the paper? - he seems to be the Tony Blair of Policing!
Iain - you've hit on a great policy proposal there, although of course with methodone available on prescription I'm not sure how much more of an impact it would make.
ReplyDeleteYou're right though, the man's a whole victoria sponge short of a picnic - he declared not so long ago that speeding was as bad as murder.
"Let's help the addicts before we help the taxpayers!"
ReplyDeleteWhatever the other arguments against I think it is certain that handing out needles costs far less than treating hepititas etc. Of course we could decide that the NHS shouldn't treat anybody responsible for their condition like drug users, smokers, those of us who don't exercise ... ?
I agree with ian and cinnamon.
ReplyDeleteOf course if we did start allowing cheap generic heroin to be freely available it is likely it would increase the number of addicts. So is that too high a price? I would say certainly not.
Also I think it's a matter of philosophy. Personally I'd rather live in a society that allowed choice and valued personal responsibility. You might differ from this and prefer a nanny state. In which case I expect you're pretty happy with Tony.
"Of course we could decide that the NHS shouldn't treat anybody responsible for their condition like drug users, smokers, those of us who don't exercise ... ?"
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good idea, although smokers fund the NHS through taxation on cigarettes so I'd let them off.
This tosser was actually caught speeding twice by a newspaper although i dont think he ticketed himself.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what he is doing, and believe that drugs should be legalised , as nasty as they are and as stupids as those who take them are (I used to) they are a fact of life , contol elps prohibition doesnt , you can say the same about firearms.
Okay, he's a nut, but what exactly is your argument against clean needles? Or your argument against having a place to put them that isn't dumping them in a kid's front garden?
ReplyDeleteI've never understood why Tories are keen on prohibition - smacks of the Nanny to me.
ReplyDeleteI don't care whether drugs are legalised or not. As long as they're not legal, the police shouldn't be poncing around facilitating their "safe" use.
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with letting drug addicts die out? Where does it say in the NHS charter, if there is such a thing, that the taxpayer is responsible for self-inflicted damage? If they get AIDS, they get it. So what?
Giving up drugs is no worse than giving up a 60-cigarette a day habit. All this fuss about checking in to clinics, etc is just to add drama to the lives of inadequate people. In fact, one famous drug addict whose name I don't remember because I really don't care, actually said he had a harder time giving up cigarettes than heroin. Why has the West elevated drug taking into some special, arcane problem?
Quote: Carlos Tevez ... "If you don't like being caught speeding, don't speed."
ReplyDeleteAnd of course you, Carlos, have never, never, ever exceeded the speed limit, have you ?
Never been distracted for a moment, and drifted above the limit.
Never strayed a little beyond, just to make sure that you overtake a little more quickly, and perhaps more safely.
Never had to accelerate above it to avoid a risky situation.
B*llocks - if you drive then you have exceeded the limit at some times, just like we all have. If you don't drive then you don't understand the scenarios I have described above, and should not comment.
Self-righteous comments like yours irritate me hugely.
With regard to speed cameras, Brunstrom's idiotic quasi-religious fervour for their use is totally disproportionate to the problem of excessive speed, which (contrary to whatever you may have been spun) is the DIRECT cause of less than 5% of all accidents.
His excessive reliance on them draws focus, and finance, away from solving other significant transport and crime problems.
Re Speed Cameras...a family friend is a very senior copper, and no way would ho go on record with this but I know he believes...that the number of fatalities and serious accidents increasing in some areas on the road is statistically correlated to the introduction and spread of speed cameras...is it that as the police have broadly withdrawn from policing the roads (leaving it to the cheaper Gatsos) that the roads are now more dangerous, as people only change their driving behaviour near speed cameras, elsewhere they have little chance of being caught. But that goes against government policy and would be a thought crime if held by a deputy chief constable who values his pension
ReplyDeleteBrunstrom is my local cheif copper and he is even more barking daft than you think...you shoul dread the Evening Leader for Flintshire.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same man, BTW, that parked his caravan illegally with car and then went off his head when he was criticised, just after introducing the UK's most draconian traffic regime.
Anything you say about this idiot wouldn't be unbelievable, especially to those who have to live with his policies.
"The reason that this idea is wrong is because the man who supports it is not being consistent. He supports the poor heroin user, but hounds the general motorist. How can he justify it?"
ReplyDeletespeeding motorists kill children
heroin addicts shoplift from department stores
as a parent i iknow which i prefer
Erm, Mrs Thatcher introduced the first needle exchanges in 1986/87.
ReplyDeleteInteresting all these comments calling for 'free heroin'. Would people have to prove that they are already addicted, or could anyone pop along and give it a try? It would be difficult to 'police' this.
ReplyDeleteThe case has been stated within the comments here that people can get by in life perfectly well using a pure form of heroin. That being the case won't even more people be tempted to give it a go? Especially as its the case that if you lower the price of a particular item then consumption of that item will increase. Is that what we want?
I am in favour of legalising all drugs on ideological grounds(although not firmly commited to this viewpoint, in light of some evidence of the consequences), but providing them for free - madness!
AC
I am a North Wales resident. My irritation at my ticket for doing 37 in a 30 zone on my motorcycle was slightly mitigated by the knowledge that on the same journey I had been doing 110 in a 70 zone and hadn't seen hide or hair of a proper traffic police patrol.
ReplyDeleteWell why not go the whole hog and dish out heroin for free? It'd be cheaper than having the abusers in a situation where they're stealing to purchase it instead.
ReplyDeletePeople have a bizarre notion of how life has been since and before 1971.