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An ex-cop says no and believes Wales could plot its own course. | :00:00. | :00:12. | |
We need to decriminalise, a fresh new approach. | :00:13. | :00:26. | |
Tonight we put his views to the test. | :00:27. | :00:28. | |
We're human beings at the end of the day. | :00:29. | :00:34. | |
We travel to Portugal to see their new radical approach. | :00:35. | :00:43. | |
They trust does and they feel safe with others. | :00:44. | :00:47. | |
A lot of people, they should stay illegal. | :00:48. | :00:56. | |
We go to Wrexham to see their problems with drug use. | :00:57. | :00:58. | |
And ask could Arfon Jones' controversial | :00:59. | :01:03. | |
Do they want a drug shooting gallery that could sustain a drug using | :01:04. | :01:14. | |
lifestyle? Do they really want that? It's Friday morning, | :01:15. | :01:18. | |
in Cardiff city centre, and Mick's just had his fix | :01:19. | :01:23. | |
for the day. I usually get down here about | :01:24. | :01:42. | |
7:30am. Nice one. Cheers. Thanks. I buy a ?10 bag. It should last nine | :01:43. | :01:54. | |
hours before you start withdrawal. You know what I mean? I've seen it | :01:55. | :02:01. | |
change on the streets for the worse. It's bad out there now. People | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
stabbing each other in the back. Just for the sake of five or six | :02:06. | :02:07. | |
quid. He's one of the almost 50,000 people | :02:08. | :02:10. | |
in Wales with a drug problem. I use street drugs. I've been | :02:11. | :02:26. | |
self-medicating for 16 years. Same. Maybe a bit longer. | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
Problem drug users are those who use opioids like heroin, | :02:32. | :02:33. | |
When I ask for help, I'm told to wait six months before they offer me | :02:34. | :02:48. | |
help. I have a family. Five boys. Using class a drugs has just | :02:49. | :02:49. | |
destroyed me. When he is not on the street, Mick | :02:50. | :03:18. | |
is at a day centre. When did you inject today? In the side of my leg. | :03:19. | :03:25. | |
It's a car-park for some, and the streets for others . | :03:26. | :03:45. | |
There's nowhere to go around here. Nowhere to go. You are using the | :03:46. | :03:54. | |
toilet, using the bushes. People look down on as like we are scum. | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
We're not scum. Where human beings at the end of the day. | :03:59. | :04:01. | |
They often get in trouble with the law. | :04:02. | :04:06. | |
The Home Office estimates that under half of acquisitive | :04:07. | :04:08. | |
He just got out of jail yesterday. He's been in the game as long as I | :04:09. | :04:24. | |
have. Maybe longer. What were you in for? Shoplifting for funding the | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
habit. It's what most people do. And it's not just a problem | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
in our capital city. In Wrexham, anxieties over | :04:34. | :04:35. | |
drug use have reached Police and councillors have | :04:36. | :04:37. | |
been at meetings trying We are in fear of these people | :04:38. | :04:46. | |
handing out... They're worried about some | :04:47. | :04:59. | |
of the town's 50 drug users who congregate in the Grosvenor Road | :05:00. | :05:01. | |
area where charities We've got people who are using drugs | :05:02. | :05:17. | |
openly on the street. It may not be an actual problem but it is very | :05:18. | :05:23. | |
worrying for people. It seems that they can go into a chemist and grab | :05:24. | :05:29. | |
a pack fall. They get ten or 20, just use one or two and throw the | :05:30. | :05:37. | |
whole lot away. They are allowed to meet in groups and they threaten | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
people. They don't get the sympathy that some of them, I have to say, | :05:41. | :05:42. | |
need. Arfon Jones is Police | :05:43. | :05:45. | |
and Crime Commissioner for North Wales and a Wrexham | :05:46. | :05:47. | |
councillor, so he's Lots of them are addicted to drugs | :05:48. | :05:49. | |
because of some trauma in life. And he has | :05:50. | :06:00. | |
a radical plan to address these. No way we can arrest our way | :06:01. | :06:03. | |
out of this drugs war. We need to decriminalise, | :06:04. | :06:07. | |
a fresh new approach. Make it a public health | :06:08. | :06:17. | |
issue and put more resources into health | :06:18. | :06:27. | |
to help people with addiction. He's calling for decriminalisation | :06:28. | :06:29. | |
of the possession of drugs and a so-called fix room | :06:30. | :06:32. | |
in the town. Today Arfon Jones is with | :06:33. | :06:35. | |
drug-worker Pete Jones who's taking him to a popular spot | :06:36. | :06:40. | |
used by drug users, This is what people | :06:41. | :06:43. | |
are worried about. Clean needles are issued to drug | :06:44. | :06:52. | |
users to reduce the risk of disease. But many used ones | :06:53. | :06:55. | |
are left lying around. It has got a long tip on it. That | :06:56. | :07:11. | |
goes safely inside the box. I just close it up. | :07:12. | :07:13. | |
The council estimates a quarter of a million | :07:14. | :07:14. | |
needles were issued in Wrexham last year. | :07:15. | :07:17. | |
Pete Jones says most are returned to needle exchanges, | :07:18. | :07:19. | |
An orange tip there. Can you see? Peter's doing a wonderful job, | :07:20. | :07:34. | |
voluntarily, not getting paid. It's a dirty job that needs doing. We | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
need to clean this up and we also need to stop it getting out there in | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
the first place. We need a fix room. So people who are dependent on | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
opiates can go somewhere safe and clean to inject and so they don't | :07:52. | :07:54. | |
dispose their paraphernalia like they do here. | :07:55. | :07:58. | |
Ty Croeso is where Pete helps run various services for the homeless | :07:59. | :08:04. | |
and substance abusers, including this needle exchange, | :08:05. | :08:07. | |
which is causing so much controversy locally. | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
What happens when a person comes in here now to see you? They will have | :08:13. | :08:21. | |
a chat with me when I established what they will be using. For | :08:22. | :08:27. | |
example, they might want a one milk syringe and a couple to cook up | :08:28. | :08:32. | |
their drug of choice. That has a filter in it to get rid of debris. | :08:33. | :08:37. | |
This is all about harm reduction. You don't want somebody using | :08:38. | :08:45. | |
somebody's used equipment because then you could be providing an | :08:46. | :08:46. | |
environment for infection. Arfon Jones thinks things would be | :08:47. | :08:49. | |
even safer for drug users if they could also consume the drugs | :08:50. | :08:52. | |
on these premises, How would this go down with current | :08:53. | :08:54. | |
user Luke and former addict Mark? Would you find this helpful and | :08:55. | :09:08. | |
safer if you were allowed to use this building to inject? There | :09:09. | :09:16. | |
should be somewhere to go to inject properly, supervised by a nurse in | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
case anything went wrong, and that. I used to go behind the council | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
houses to inject and I was always scared that the police would catch | :09:26. | :09:30. | |
me injecting and I might rush and miss and do something seriously | :09:31. | :09:34. | |
wrong to my body. Which I have done in my past. I've been walking around | :09:35. | :09:42. | |
with blood all over me. As a user, I'd like to say yes but I'm also of | :09:43. | :09:50. | |
the opinion that, maybe, no. Even though I am a user, I think it might | :09:51. | :09:55. | |
glorify it all, do you know what I mean? | :09:56. | :09:59. | |
The Police Commissioner says a fix room could be where addicts come | :10:00. | :10:02. | |
But he wants to go even further and have the NHS prescribe pure | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
medical grade heroin substitutes as part of supervised treatment | :10:08. | :10:09. | |
But, what is important is that you have support there. | :10:10. | :10:13. | |
It is not just a question of allowing them to inject their own | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
drugs, you need to have nurses there just in case | :10:18. | :10:19. | |
You need to have naloxon so that they can treat | :10:20. | :10:22. | |
So allowing them to use a fix room is just part of the answer. | :10:23. | :10:29. | |
You know. It is to make it a health issue. | :10:30. | :10:33. | |
The Police Commissioner looks to Switzerland as an example. | :10:34. | :10:37. | |
We went there fifteen years ago to see the approach, | :10:38. | :10:40. | |
meeting Peter Richard, addicted to heroin for 25 years. | :10:41. | :10:50. | |
One is working every day, as family, good friends, life can be very well, | :10:51. | :10:56. | |
even as a heroin addict. The Swiss have clinics where addicts | :10:57. | :11:00. | |
inject themselves with medical grade heroin supplied by their health | :11:01. | :11:04. | |
service We spoke to Peter this month | :11:05. | :11:05. | |
and he told us after five years at this clinic | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
he felt ready to leave. He's in good health and says | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
he has no cravings for any drugs. The Swiss have collected a lot | :11:16. | :11:18. | |
of hard data on their new system and its supporters say it actually | :11:19. | :11:22. | |
saves money because There are those who are sceptical | :11:23. | :11:24. | |
the Swiss approach would work here. David Raynes was once | :11:25. | :11:35. | |
a customs and excise drugs intelligence officer for Wales | :11:36. | :11:37. | |
and the West country. He's doubtful any kind of fix room | :11:38. | :11:39. | |
would be acceptable. Switzerland is a very small country. | :11:40. | :11:51. | |
It's very different. You can't necessarily take the situation in | :11:52. | :11:55. | |
one tiny country and extrapolate that across a country like the UK | :11:56. | :12:01. | |
with a population approaching 70 million. If you are going to have | :12:02. | :12:06. | |
shooting galleries in London, you'd probably need 20. That's a huge | :12:07. | :12:08. | |
cost. a shooting gallery that | :12:09. | :12:10. | |
would sustain a drug- But it could be cheaper? Yes. But it | :12:11. | :12:37. | |
costs money. You'd have to take the money out of the NHS. That money | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
could be used to treat people with cancer. It would be a very hard | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
sell. When people can't get drugs for cancer. What would the reaction | :12:46. | :12:52. | |
be if you give this money and go short on providing for cancer drugs? | :12:53. | :12:59. | |
At this moment in time, there are ?12 million for drugs in North Wales | :13:00. | :13:03. | |
and we need to look at spending that better and be more effective in how | :13:04. | :13:04. | |
we spend it. Asked about the prospect | :13:05. | :13:07. | |
of so-called fix rooms, the Welsh Government said it wasn't | :13:08. | :13:09. | |
a straightforward issue under UK legislation, | :13:10. | :13:12. | |
but pointed out there was a multi- agency steering group looking | :13:13. | :13:15. | |
at evidence and considering the need My other children and friends were | :13:16. | :13:34. | |
saying, Natalie is on drugs, and I didn't believe them. She promised | :13:35. | :13:36. | |
me, she swore. Nathalie was on hard | :13:37. | :13:40. | |
drugs for ten years. I think there is a case for six | :13:41. | :13:42. | |
to heroin addiction. I think there is a case for six | :13:43. | :14:06. | |
rooms. I don't. You are helping them with their fix. What if somebody | :14:07. | :14:13. | |
bought a drug and it wasn't heroin, and they dropped it on the floor, | :14:14. | :14:18. | |
who is to blame? Youthful giving them the needle? You can't test each | :14:19. | :14:25. | |
one that is coming in. You don't know if it is heroin or not. And | :14:26. | :14:30. | |
secondly, it is a class a drug, isn't it, like Coke and other drugs. | :14:31. | :14:37. | |
So you are letting somebody who is carrying a class a drug into this | :14:38. | :14:42. | |
room. You are giving them the needle to inject themselves, and you are | :14:43. | :14:47. | |
standing there watching them illegally. But they are addicts. It | :14:48. | :14:54. | |
doesn't matter. They are still doing it illegally. | :14:55. | :15:05. | |
Enforcing the law on drugs is costing billions worldwide. | :15:06. | :15:12. | |
surveillance operation, tracking drugs coming | :15:13. | :15:16. | |
Just the night before they busted a dealer in Yorkshire, | :15:17. | :15:20. | |
seizing a firearm and a significant amount of cash. | :15:21. | :15:22. | |
Six arrests at three different sites in Yorkshire. I think the drug scene | :15:23. | :15:28. | |
in North Wales would be akin to anywhere inning and in Wales. | :15:29. | :15:34. | |
I wouldn't describe it as out of control, | :15:35. | :15:36. | |
Good successes over last few years and people have | :15:37. | :15:40. | |
Officers are busy at the other end of the scale too- | :15:41. | :15:52. | |
policing the effects of drug-taking on the user and the wider community. | :15:53. | :15:59. | |
One of their biggest challenges is so called legal highs - new | :16:00. | :16:02. | |
psychoactive substances like black mamba and spice which mimic | :16:03. | :16:04. | |
They are causing me significant concerns. | :16:05. | :16:10. | |
It is still untested what the long-term effects of taking these | :16:11. | :16:18. | |
drugs will be. But we are coming across particularly young males with | :16:19. | :16:27. | |
some sort of psychosis, lying prostrate on the street, and members | :16:28. | :16:31. | |
of the public are alarmed, and that is an illegal drugs they are taking. | :16:32. | :16:37. | |
Over a period of two months Wrexham police patrolled the streets | :16:38. | :16:40. | |
for an extra two and half thousand hours in response to | :16:41. | :16:42. | |
But Chief Inspector Jolly says this can't go on. | :16:43. | :16:46. | |
There's a sustainability issue for me here | :16:47. | :16:49. | |
The Commissioner says the real solution, apart from fix room | :16:50. | :16:52. | |
is to decriminalise the possession of all drugs. | :16:53. | :16:56. | |
We need to think bigger and how to problem solve it and put together | :16:57. | :17:00. | |
sustainable solutions. The commissioner says that the | :17:01. | :17:18. | |
solution is decriminalising drugs. Should we be wasting valuable | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
resources on something that is not causing harm like a small amount of | :17:23. | :17:27. | |
cannabis when there is organised crime going on around the supply of | :17:28. | :17:31. | |
cocaine and heroin when people are being killed in gangland killings in | :17:32. | :17:38. | |
Manchester and Liverpool. That is where the resources should be, not | :17:39. | :17:41. | |
arresting people with a small amount of drugs. Police insist that there | :17:42. | :17:58. | |
resources are already proportionate, encouraging people towards | :17:59. | :18:05. | |
rehabilitation. In America, some drugs are already decriminalised. | :18:06. | :18:09. | |
The MP for the Rhondda Chris Bryant lost his mother | :18:10. | :18:11. | |
He's against a more liberal attitude to drugs. | :18:12. | :18:14. | |
It preys on the parts of your subconscious that you are not happy | :18:15. | :18:19. | |
with, and it turns you into a different human being. And I just | :18:20. | :18:27. | |
don't want us as a country, as a Parliament, to say, you know what? | :18:28. | :18:32. | |
Play with that. Have a go. It doesn't matter. In the end, it | :18:33. | :18:36. | |
doesn't really matter. Because it does. But the Liberal lies as are | :18:37. | :18:41. | |
saying they are not calling for any of these changes because they want | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
to see an increase in drugs or normalising it. I don't believe it. | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
They say they want to reduce it by regulating. I think there are some | :18:53. | :18:57. | |
people who, because in their ideological mindset, they go, do you | :18:58. | :19:03. | |
know what? I want to liberalised. I don't think it should be illegal, | :19:04. | :19:06. | |
and that is the end of it. And my best argument I have got is it would | :19:07. | :19:09. | |
be better for everybody, and I just don't buy it. | :19:10. | :19:22. | |
We brought Arfon Jones to a country that decriminalised drugs 15 years | :19:23. | :19:35. | |
ago. I have heard from other people that it is not a magic will it, | :19:36. | :19:40. | |
decriminalisation, so I am here to see for myself on the front line | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
with a bit of scepticism, and I remain to be convinced. | :19:46. | :19:56. | |
The first thing they tell you here is they haven't | :19:57. | :19:58. | |
Long time since I've been out with sirens . | :19:59. | :20:02. | |
Ahead of us, two white vans packed with drugs seized from traffickers. | :20:03. | :20:07. | |
Three tonnes of hard and soft drugs, worth tens of millions | :20:08. | :20:11. | |
of pounds, are brought to an incinerator. | :20:12. | :20:13. | |
The supply and possession of drugs here is still illegal. | :20:14. | :20:22. | |
It is part of a big package that has been seized. | :20:23. | :20:31. | |
Narcotics are seized and burnt, traffickers jailed. | :20:32. | :20:32. | |
The change here is subtle, although you get a clue on the streets. | :20:33. | :20:49. | |
Marta and Rui are health workers for a charity that | :20:50. | :20:52. | |
There are lot of crack cocaine smokers and sex workers | :20:53. | :20:58. | |
Some of them don't have a mother or father. Some of them look on us as | :20:59. | :21:09. | |
the family. They become sisters and brothers. They trust us, and they | :21:10. | :21:12. | |
feel safe with us. They say it's become much easier | :21:13. | :21:18. | |
to help people since Portugal reduced the penalties for drug | :21:19. | :21:21. | |
possession 15 years ago. Argentina, a crack addict, | :21:22. | :21:23. | |
told us she feels safer asking This woman's getting foil | :21:24. | :21:26. | |
to smoke crack cocaine. All within yards of the local | :21:27. | :22:00. | |
police, who don't bat an eyelid. Me feel very secure with us. That | :22:01. | :22:11. | |
the police force won't do anything to them. | :22:12. | :22:14. | |
supply of any drugs, with more than ten days' | :22:15. | :22:34. | |
They take action. If it is less, they get sent to a dissuasion | :22:35. | :22:39. | |
commission. Pedro is already getting treated | :22:40. | :22:42. | |
for heroin addiction. So he is told firmly | :22:43. | :22:44. | |
to stick with the programme A social worker was brought | :22:45. | :22:46. | |
in to help him sort out his life. There will be penalties | :22:47. | :22:50. | |
if he's back again. If a drug user is in need of help, | :22:51. | :23:00. | |
or if you want some sort of counselling or some sort of | :23:01. | :23:04. | |
referral, I am in a much better position to provide them with that | :23:05. | :23:07. | |
help than a judge would be. Because the judges and the courts were built | :23:08. | :23:15. | |
under the assumption that if you hand out sanctions, that person | :23:16. | :23:20. | |
would never do that again, and that might work if you are talking about | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
someone that robbed the bank, but for drug users, it might not work as | :23:25. | :23:26. | |
well as that. This is the unique | :23:27. | :23:28. | |
thing about Portugal. Some countries have so-called drugs | :23:29. | :23:30. | |
courts, but here they have effectively moved drug use away | :23:31. | :23:32. | |
from police and courts Nuno says if they are coming to the | :23:33. | :23:51. | |
health service, they can get people to treatment more quickly. | :23:52. | :23:56. | |
Before austerity measures cut the Portuguese health budget, | :23:57. | :23:58. | |
drug users could get in here within a week of a referral | :23:59. | :24:01. | |
In the detox area, we met 24-year-old Ana Branco. | :24:02. | :24:11. | |
She referred herself here, fearing her crack | :24:12. | :24:12. | |
Specman free thank you very much. She said she is taking medication | :24:13. | :24:25. | |
for anxiety and depression and for withdrawal of cocaine. She is also | :24:26. | :24:31. | |
on a methadone programme, and now she is decreasing her dose. | :24:32. | :24:34. | |
The staff here say decriminalisation has taken the stigma away | :24:35. | :24:37. | |
from addiction but more importantly it's been accompanied with a lot | :24:38. | :24:39. | |
Both liberals and conservatives can be selective about | :24:40. | :24:49. | |
So for another view, we took Arfon Jones to Europe's | :24:50. | :24:57. | |
independent drug monitoring agency, also based in Lisbon. | :24:58. | :25:06. | |
The Portuguese change is consistent and coherent, set ever body in | :25:07. | :25:12. | |
Portugal knows what is happening to a drug user, whereas in other | :25:13. | :25:17. | |
countries, a doctor might give you one answer, a policeman might give | :25:18. | :25:20. | |
you another answer, and a Government official might give you a third. | :25:21. | :25:24. | |
The agency say drug use figures in Portugal are broadly in line | :25:25. | :25:27. | |
with other European countries-some up, some are down. | :25:28. | :25:29. | |
Some senior police officers were privately sceptical at first. | :25:30. | :25:31. | |
Now they say the policy's working for them, saying it allows them | :25:32. | :25:34. | |
Finally, we took Arfon Jones to meet with the architect | :25:35. | :25:42. | |
Dr Goulao has become well-known internationally, | :25:43. | :25:50. | |
He says the policy's worked for Portugal, but he's not convinced | :25:51. | :25:52. | |
Our drug problems were present across all social groups | :25:53. | :26:03. | |
But probably in your country things are much more confined to | :26:04. | :26:12. | |
marginalised people, so that makes it more difficult, the acceptance | :26:13. | :26:13. | |
for the rest of society. So a note of caution | :26:14. | :26:16. | |
on the final day. What does the commissioner | :26:17. | :26:18. | |
think having now met In 2001, Portugal was ready for | :26:19. | :26:33. | |
change. I'm not sure we can say the same thing about England and Wales | :26:34. | :26:36. | |
because of the nature of who is a fact by a diction. Does that put you | :26:37. | :26:44. | |
off? Are you disappointed? It is thought I have, but I don't think we | :26:45. | :26:46. | |
should give up. Arfon Jones accepts he has | :26:47. | :26:48. | |
a big job on to change What does decriminalisation | :26:49. | :26:54. | |
mean to you? Well, it means certain drugs, | :26:55. | :27:07. | |
they won't be arrested for, they can take legally and that's | :27:08. | :27:10. | |
what I think anyway. I don't think much would happen. If | :27:11. | :27:27. | |
the drug is decriminalised, it becomes to do with health, not with | :27:28. | :27:31. | |
the justice system. But that won't help most people anyway, they will | :27:32. | :27:35. | |
put it in a handbag or their pocket, it will be fine. That is not the | :27:36. | :27:38. | |
case. It should stay illegal. Maria's daughter is off heroin now, | :27:39. | :27:46. | |
but the response of families like hers is a challenge | :27:47. | :27:49. | |
for drugs reformers. In the Rhonda, Chris Bryant says | :27:50. | :27:51. | |
we don't know enough about drugs Many are very highly | :27:52. | :27:53. | |
addictive and therefore very Many lead to very | :27:54. | :27:59. | |
chaotic lifestyles. Some prey off other and deeper | :28:00. | :28:02. | |
psychological problems. Which again we don't fully | :28:03. | :28:10. | |
understand and my anxiety is that you would be, | :28:11. | :28:15. | |
not necessarily leading to a massive opening | :28:16. | :28:19. | |
of the doors and the floodgates I don't subscribe to that kind | :28:20. | :28:21. | |
of language at all but if there were an extra 50 people | :28:22. | :28:25. | |
in the Rhondda who ended up taking heroin or crack cocaine, | :28:26. | :28:28. | |
then I think that would be a failure The Home Office told us there are no | :28:29. | :28:31. | |
plans to decriminalise drugs. But is Arfon Jones still | :28:32. | :28:38. | |
convinced of his case? Decriminalisation means that | :28:39. | :28:44. | |
addiction is treated as a disease rather than a crime and I think | :28:45. | :28:46. | |
that is the way forward. That is the way we treat | :28:47. | :28:50. | |
people who are addicted to prescription drugs, | :28:51. | :28:53. | |
those who are addicted to alcohol. So why should people addicted | :28:54. | :28:55. | |
to unlawful drugs be Whatever is the way forward, | :28:56. | :28:57. | |
the possession and supply of drugs continues to have impacts on Welsh | :28:58. | :29:05. | |
communities and individuals. There comes a time where you just | :29:06. | :29:11. | |
get sick and tired of it just At least for John Paul, | :29:12. | :29:25. | |
there's more optimism. I lasted ten months last year | :29:26. | :29:35. | |
without using. My family and kids deserve | :29:36. | :29:53. | |
better than me. I let a lot of people down by | :29:54. | :29:59. | |
sinking back into this way of living. And Week In Week Out is back | :30:00. | :30:07. | |
on Monday night at 8:30pm. And this time tomorrow, it is the Wales | :30:08. | :30:11. | |
Report. | :30:12. | :30:14. |