Browse content similar to 01/08/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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tonight for the violent crackdown in Venezuala. | :00:00. | :00:15. | |
As these opposition leaders are arrested, the UN and the EU | :00:16. | :00:18. | |
the situation, with the help of an opposition senator | :00:19. | :00:24. | |
Fentanyl, an anaesthetic fifty times more powerful than heroin | :00:25. | :00:30. | |
is the drug that killed the rock star Prince. | :00:31. | :00:33. | |
Today we learned that its illicit use has killed at least sixty people | :00:34. | :00:36. | |
already this year in one area of the county alone. | :00:37. | :00:40. | |
We'll ask why did it take so long to realise this was going on? | :00:41. | :00:45. | |
And Ryanair's shy and self effacing boss is warning of severe turbulence | :00:46. | :00:48. | |
The world has finally focussed on the severity of the crisis | :00:49. | :01:05. | |
in Venezuela following Sunday's vote to put more power in the hands | :01:06. | :01:08. | |
of President Maduro.The lethal cocktail of violent crackdown, | :01:09. | :01:10. | |
food shortages, spiralling inflation, rapidly draining | :01:11. | :01:11. | |
The abduction of Opposition leaders in the middle of the night, | :01:12. | :01:21. | |
filmed on the mobile phones of their families, will have | :01:22. | :01:23. | |
been viewed millions of times in the country, | :01:24. | :01:25. | |
and the international response has been overwhelmingly condemnatory. | :01:26. | :01:30. | |
Only Cuba is standing four square behind President Maduro. | :01:31. | :01:36. | |
Following US sanctions imposed yesterday the UN | :01:37. | :01:38. | |
Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for urgent political | :01:39. | :01:40. | |
negotiations between the government and the opposition to curb | :01:41. | :01:42. | |
Vladimir Hernandez is a Venezuelan correspondent for the BBC and has | :01:43. | :01:48. | |
this report on the crisis in his home country. | :01:49. | :02:01. | |
In the middle of last night, in pyjamas, in front of family members, | :02:02. | :02:09. | |
a Venezuelan opposition politician is bundled into a vehicle belonging | :02:10. | :02:13. | |
to the intelligence services. Help, said Antonio Ledezma who has been | :02:14. | :02:19. | |
kept under house arrest for two years for allegedly plotting against | :02:20. | :02:26. | |
President Maduro. This is a dictatorship says this woman while | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
Toby Jones has taken away. But the same time, and other opposition | :02:32. | :02:38. | |
politician, Leopoldo Lopez is also arrested. He is a well-known | :02:39. | :02:42. | |
politician who was recently put under house arrest after being | :02:43. | :02:47. | |
imprisoned since 2015 for supposedly inciting violent acts. For half a | :02:48. | :02:55. | |
century, Venezuela was seen as one of the most stable countries in | :02:56. | :02:59. | |
Latin America but since Hugo Chavez was elected at the | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
turn-of-the-century, increasingly their democratic credentials have | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
been been called into question. The arrest last night, midst of an | :03:08. | :03:10. | |
ongoing political battle between the successor of Hugo Chavez and plans | :03:11. | :03:21. | |
to change the constitution. And the political instability is fuelling | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
social unrest. In the streets, protests have been erupting since | :03:26. | :03:29. | |
April, Venezuelans have long put up with inflation of at least 800%. | :03:30. | :03:33. | |
Severe food and medicine shortages mean that the people are living | :03:34. | :03:37. | |
through the worst year since that Chavez revolution. This is basically | :03:38. | :03:47. | |
collapsed. President Maduro says that the | :03:48. | :04:07. | |
changes to the constitution voted in on Sunday were to restore peace in | :04:08. | :04:11. | |
the country, but here, he is also saying that with these new powers, | :04:12. | :04:16. | |
he will seek to remove the Attorney General, a former government | :04:17. | :04:20. | |
supporter who has now accuse the government of state terrorism, for | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
the way it has dealt with protesters and opposition politicians. | :04:25. | :04:42. | |
Over 100 people have died in these months of anti-government protests. | :04:43. | :04:49. | |
Thousands more have been arrested amid heavy criticism from human | :04:50. | :04:54. | |
rights organisations. This current wave of protests feels very | :04:55. | :04:56. | |
different from those seen in the past years. With hunger and despair | :04:57. | :05:05. | |
are growing, some of those involved in these demonstrations have told me | :05:06. | :05:07. | |
there is not much to lose any more. Will Grant is a BBC | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
Latin America correspondent First of all can I ask you, or | :05:13. | :05:25. | |
whether you know were people built where the opposition leaders are | :05:26. | :05:29. | |
tonight? And I think he is uncertain as to whether he will be speaking | :05:30. | :05:33. | |
just for a second so we was up to him in a moment. | :05:34. | :05:36. | |
In a moment I'll be speaking to the Venezualuan MP | :05:37. | :05:38. | |
Juan Mekhia, one of the leaders of the country's | :05:39. | :05:40. | |
But first I'm joined here in the studio by Javier Farkhe - | :05:41. | :05:44. | |
he's an activist and journalist who supports the Maduro government. | :05:45. | :05:47. | |
Good evening to you. Thank you for having me. You have prep President | :05:48. | :05:56. | |
Maduro, is he capable of sanctioning torture. He is hugely underestimated | :05:57. | :06:01. | |
in terms of the way he is dealing with the situation. He has been | :06:02. | :06:07. | |
facing protests, looting, violence, strikes, attempts to bring him | :06:08. | :06:12. | |
down... He been arresting people and there has been tear gas, is he | :06:13. | :06:20. | |
capable of ordering torture? No. President Maduro called for the | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
assembly not to change the constitution but he introduced | :06:25. | :06:27. | |
reforms because the institutions could not stay the same. But the | :06:28. | :06:31. | |
power to appoint judges does change and people are protesting and they | :06:32. | :06:34. | |
felt it was removing their democratic rights of the people. The | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
judges were appointed in 2015 with the endorsement of the Attorney | :06:41. | :06:44. | |
General who has turned his back on the government and one of the | :06:45. | :06:47. | |
reasons that she is in trouble is that she denies she has the -- | :06:48. | :06:53. | |
anything to do with the appointment of the judges before the government | :06:54. | :06:57. | |
to over the National Assembly. The country is practically on its knees. | :06:58. | :07:03. | |
It is. We have a situation where there is international condemnation | :07:04. | :07:08. | |
of what is going on in Venezuela and particularly from the UN, the | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
bundling into cars last night of two opposition leaders, was that a | :07:14. | :07:16. | |
mistake? It could have been handled in a different way but they had | :07:17. | :07:19. | |
violated the conditions under which they have been put under house | :07:20. | :07:23. | |
arrest. They were in their homes. Should they have been arrested in | :07:24. | :07:28. | |
any case? One of the reasons they were arrested was because they | :07:29. | :07:33. | |
violated -- Michael violated the conditions of their house arrest. | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
First of all they called for protests which was forbidden by the | :07:38. | :07:40. | |
government and they called for violence. There are videos which | :07:41. | :07:49. | |
show... He actually calls for violence? You can quote that? | :07:50. | :07:57. | |
Rebelling against the government is not calling for violence. If you're | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
calling on the Army to do that, you're asking the Army to rebel | :08:03. | :08:06. | |
against the government, then you are calling for a military coup, they | :08:07. | :08:10. | |
have been doing that for a long time, ever since the failed coup of | :08:11. | :08:17. | |
2002. Obviously, notwithstanding the oil price, and the collapse, | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
President Maduro cannot keep a handle on what is going on in his | :08:22. | :08:26. | |
economy, there are food shortages, people cannot move freely around the | :08:27. | :08:35. | |
country any more, a government is not working. The government is | :08:36. | :08:37. | |
working... It is difficult for the government to handle that situation | :08:38. | :08:41. | |
because of low oil prices. There is little hard currency available to | :08:42. | :08:45. | |
buy products not produced in Venezuelan. The accusation is that | :08:46. | :08:51. | |
in the middle of all this hardship there is utter corruption. There is | :08:52. | :08:55. | |
clear evidence in videos and images that show that convoys of food for | :08:56. | :09:03. | |
distribution have been attacked by gangs of opposition motorcyclists. | :09:04. | :09:07. | |
There has been a lot of speculation within the Private sectors that | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
handles the warehouses. Why are you so sure that the combined opposition | :09:13. | :09:18. | |
does not have the policies to relieve the situation? 60% of the | :09:19. | :09:22. | |
people according to an opinion poll, in favour of the government, says | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
that the opposition do not have the capacity. They have been trying to | :09:27. | :09:32. | |
bring down the government. They do not have a clear position on the | :09:33. | :09:39. | |
economy. Can I be clear? You back entirely President Maduro. Not at | :09:40. | :09:42. | |
all. I think the stakes have been made, they could have dealt at | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
better with the issue of the exchange rate, it is a big problem. | :09:47. | :09:54. | |
Yes. At the same time, when he took office in 2013, that coincided with | :09:55. | :09:57. | |
the drop in oil prices. No government would have been able to | :09:58. | :10:03. | |
handle that situation better. Now we can go to our correspondent in | :10:04. | :10:09. | |
Caracas. Will Grant, ASCII first of all tonight, we saw those pictures | :10:10. | :10:12. | |
of the opposition leaders being bundled into cars last night by | :10:13. | :10:17. | |
security services, we have heard a supporter of President Maduro saying | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
that they violated their curfew at home, what has happened, do you have | :10:23. | :10:27. | |
any idea where they are? It appears that both men are in a prison on the | :10:28. | :10:36. | |
outskirts of Caracas. Very little more than that is known at this | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
stage. Theoretically they need to come before a judge to hear the | :10:41. | :10:45. | |
reasoning for their rearrest. Which, as far as we know, considering a | :10:46. | :10:51. | |
statement was released by the government is for two reasons, one | :10:52. | :10:54. | |
that they broke the terms according to the government of their house | :10:55. | :10:59. | |
arrest, specifically because they released videos around this very | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
controversial vote for a new legislative body, which they said | :11:05. | :11:09. | |
was an appeal to people to take to the streets. Obviously that is a | :11:10. | :11:13. | |
very controversial idea, their lawyers and families deny that, but | :11:14. | :11:17. | |
the other reason put out by the government was that they were trying | :11:18. | :11:22. | |
to flee. The family say that was not the case. Do we know what the mood | :11:23. | :11:27. | |
is like tonight, not just in Caracas but other big cities? The videos of | :11:28. | :11:32. | |
the arrest have gone around the now, presumably? In Caracas, it is | :11:33. | :11:40. | |
extremely tense, people have been setting up barricades on the streets | :11:41. | :11:43. | |
over the past few days, particularly on the day of the vote itself, it | :11:44. | :11:49. | |
was extremely tense, there was a lot of nervousness, there were clashes | :11:50. | :11:55. | |
between the security forces and ordinary people and protesters, | :11:56. | :11:57. | |
journalists were attacked in one part of the city as well. It is an | :11:58. | :12:05. | |
extremely strange... Unique kind of feeling on the streets at the | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
moment. I used to live in Caracas when Hugo Chavez was in power and it | :12:11. | :12:16. | |
is starting to feel like the rule of law is slipping compare to those | :12:17. | :12:21. | |
days. Since then, these two men have been arrested and that adds further | :12:22. | :12:26. | |
to the tension, particularly in areas that are controlled by the | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
opposition. Thank you very much indeed. We had been hoping to speak | :12:30. | :12:37. | |
to a leader of the Venezuelan opposition tonight but we had | :12:38. | :12:39. | |
technical problems and we will return to the story again. | :12:40. | :12:42. | |
In amongst all the claims and counter claims of the impact | :12:43. | :12:45. | |
on our lives of Brexit, in every industry, the future | :12:46. | :12:47. | |
of travel to some of our most loved European destinations aviation | :12:48. | :12:50. | |
is exercising airline owners and passengers alike. | :12:51. | :12:52. | |
And two of the most vocal airline bosses have directly opposing views. | :12:53. | :12:55. | |
Willie Walsh, the boss of BA, insists all flying conditions | :12:56. | :12:58. | |
will be smooth, but Michael O'Leary of Ryanair, is the doom-monger. | :12:59. | :13:02. | |
I'll be speaking to him in a moment but first in case of you need it, | :13:03. | :13:06. | |
Michael O'Leary has long been a pantomime villain. They occasionally | :13:07. | :13:24. | |
foul-mouthed Irishman has never been afraid to ruffle a few feathers. And | :13:25. | :13:29. | |
ruffle feathers is exactly what his airline has done over the last three | :13:30. | :13:34. | |
decades, with humble beginnings and is 51 staff in 1985, it has sought | :13:35. | :13:40. | |
to become the largest airline in Europe carrying 170 million | :13:41. | :13:45. | |
passengers last year. It has also attracted consumer anger, | :13:46. | :13:48. | |
developing, some might say nurturing, a reputation for | :13:49. | :13:52. | |
ruthlessness and uncaring service. Now however, Mr | :13:53. | :14:03. | |
O'Leary is centrestage with dire warnings about the risk of Brexit. | :14:04. | :14:06. | |
He argues that it threatens the EU open skies arrangement which | :14:07. | :14:08. | |
guarantees important freedoms to airlines. These freedoms established | :14:09. | :14:10. | |
in 1944 permit for example, airlines belong to one country to fly | :14:11. | :14:13. | |
passengers to and from their country of origin. They also allow air | :14:14. | :14:18. | |
blogger to one country to fly passengers between two different | :14:19. | :14:21. | |
countries or internally within another country. For instance, | :14:22. | :14:26. | |
easyJet, UK airline can fly from London to Paris and back but also | :14:27. | :14:30. | |
from Paris to Rome or from Rome to Milan. With Brexit, these freedoms | :14:31. | :14:36. | |
could be at risk. For one thing, the system operates under the | :14:37. | :14:38. | |
jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice which | :14:39. | :14:51. | |
Britain has vowed to leave. So, will we see a disguise and hundreds of | :14:52. | :14:54. | |
grounded planes at Heathrow and Manchester the day after we leave | :14:55. | :14:56. | |
the EU? With his alarmism dismiss, Mr O'Leary is largely alone in this | :14:57. | :14:58. | |
assessment. He has not been afraid of | :14:59. | :15:01. | |
You're Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, what is your pitch? It is | :15:02. | :15:17. | |
one of concern. The problem with the legislation is if the UK leads the | :15:18. | :15:22. | |
European Union it is automatically leaving Open Skies. As things stand | :15:23. | :15:27. | |
currently there are no flight rights between the UK and the EU and vice | :15:28. | :15:31. | |
versa. That happens at the end of March. UK Government therefore has | :15:32. | :15:36. | |
to negotiate a bilateral knot with individual countries but with the EU | :15:37. | :15:41. | |
27. There is no sign of that being negotiated and no sign of any | :15:42. | :15:47. | |
agreement. You're part of the EU, you're Irish, and a leading | :15:48. | :15:52. | |
businessman. You can go to Michel Barnier, to the 27 and say it is up | :15:53. | :15:59. | |
to you to go faster. We are but the French and Germans are saying Michel | :16:00. | :16:05. | |
Barnier, slow down. If we caused some disruption for a period of | :16:06. | :16:09. | |
months, and aviation comes up six months before Brexit, if we do not | :16:10. | :16:17. | |
have the right to fly will cancel those flights. But it is in | :16:18. | :16:23. | |
everyone's interest... That is the misunderstanding here in the UK. It | :16:24. | :16:28. | |
is not in everyone's interests. It is European interests, said in the | :16:29. | :16:33. | |
European airlines who are lobbying against this to not have an | :16:34. | :16:37. | |
agreement when it will not last for a couple of years but a couple of | :16:38. | :16:41. | |
months. But the British people when booking holidays for the summer of | :16:42. | :16:48. | |
2019 it will be dry or get a very to Scotland or Ireland. You are an | :16:49. | :16:54. | |
outlier on this. Everyone else was in denial. This is reality. There | :16:55. | :17:01. | |
are other legal realities which will come unto. But you attended a | :17:02. | :17:06. | |
meeting at the European Parliament last month and we have a clip of | :17:07. | :17:14. | |
Willie Walsh taking a diametrically opposed views to you. He says it is | :17:15. | :17:19. | |
going to be fine. With policy support it ought to be relatively | :17:20. | :17:23. | |
straightforward to agree a deal on aviation that will be ready when the | :17:24. | :17:29. | |
UK leads the EU. With policy support it should be relatively easy. There | :17:30. | :17:33. | |
is no policy support that is the problem. But when you see Chris | :17:34. | :17:38. | |
Grayling tomorrow? I hope there will be but Chris Grayling and the UK | :17:39. | :17:44. | |
Government have not been able to negotiate the divorce bill, they | :17:45. | :17:48. | |
cannot agree on whether the European Court of Justice governs European | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
citizens here in the UK put up never mind doing the sectoral agreement | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
for aviation. What is different about aviation is there is no | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
fallback position. It is not covered by WTO. The UK is out of Open Skies | :18:03. | :18:07. | |
and must negotiate an agreement. The UK is not yet out of Open Skies and | :18:08. | :18:12. | |
may perhaps at yet negotiate an agreement and also several airlines | :18:13. | :18:17. | |
including the one that controls British Airways will have a base | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
within the European Union. Easyjet will have... Untrue. That will allow | :18:24. | :18:28. | |
them to fly the way they are flying just now. That is incorrect because | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
there are two issues. Ownership restrictions and flight plans. The | :18:35. | :18:39. | |
current ownership setup will not survive Brexit. A Spanish company | :18:40. | :18:46. | |
owning British Airways. No one would like an agreement more than I would. | :18:47. | :18:51. | |
But you're not recognising the reality that continental Europeans | :18:52. | :18:54. | |
see aviation as a means to put pressure on British people around | :18:55. | :19:00. | |
September, October of 2018 because there will be no agreement. The | :19:01. | :19:04. | |
business of ownership, Ryanair has a big issue. In order to have the | :19:05. | :19:10. | |
ability to fly from one destination to another in the European Union 50% | :19:11. | :19:20. | |
plus the company has to be owned and controlled by EU nationals. Ryanair | :19:21. | :19:26. | |
is not, it is that 38%. We are at 40%. That is too low. We are buying | :19:27. | :19:34. | |
back 5% of our stock every year. That is not a challenge for me. So | :19:35. | :19:39. | |
you take money out of UK pension funds supporting Ryanair? We are | :19:40. | :19:45. | |
buying back our own shares. At the moment you do not comply with the | :19:46. | :19:49. | |
regulations which will allow you to fly between cities in the European | :19:50. | :19:54. | |
Union. At the moment we do because British shareholders are treated as | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
EU citizens. I accept that. In a hard Brexit if the UK leads we will | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
have two forced UK shareholders to sell but the Easyjet structure will | :20:05. | :20:08. | |
also have to be sold out. Easyjet cannot own and Austrian company and | :20:09. | :20:15. | |
British Airways will not be allowed... You have an Austrian | :20:16. | :20:19. | |
company 50% owned by European nationals. But Easyjet only own a | :20:20. | :20:26. | |
majority. They do not control it either. You're missing the point. At | :20:27. | :20:30. | |
the moment you can do this but after Brexit unless you can, unless | :20:31. | :20:40. | |
Ryanair is owned 50 plus percent by EU nationals, you cannot fly city to | :20:41. | :20:46. | |
city. That is not a difficulty. What I will not be able to do in a hard | :20:47. | :20:51. | |
Brexit is fly from Europe to the UK or from the UK and Europe. The | :20:52. | :20:56. | |
flight rights is the major challenge, not ownership. If I had | :20:57. | :21:00. | |
to buy back another 10% of my stock that is what I plan to do anyway, we | :21:01. | :21:06. | |
will be fine. But who will fly between the UK and the EU if the | :21:07. | :21:09. | |
British Government does not negotiate an agreement in about 12 | :21:10. | :21:13. | |
months' time. And they had no idea how to negotiate that agreement. | :21:14. | :21:18. | |
Let's look at Ryanair. You said you would change the culture, if I'd | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
known being nice to customers was going to work so well I would have | :21:25. | :21:27. | |
done it ages ago. So why have you got this new policy of different | :21:28. | :21:35. | |
pricing between middle, window and aisle seats. Therefore if you are an | :21:36. | :21:39. | |
adult fly with a child that should be sitting beside you one of those | :21:40. | :21:45. | |
seats is more expensive than the other. The child seat is free. There | :21:46. | :21:52. | |
is a supplement. It is free, it is the adult who pays to reserve a | :21:53. | :21:56. | |
seat. The adult pays the extra. Yes. And that sounds like sophistry to | :21:57. | :22:03. | |
me. It is taking place at the moment and we have more than 50% of people | :22:04. | :22:10. | |
now selecting reserved seats when we are reducing our fair is about 4 | :22:11. | :22:15. | |
euros per seat. We would be reporting July numbers tomorrow, the | :22:16. | :22:20. | |
low factor is 97%. Our flights are full. I'm not suggesting there are | :22:21. | :22:25. | |
not full. People love the service and they adore the prices. What you | :22:26. | :22:35. | |
have been reporting in the papers, with the random nature of algorithms | :22:36. | :22:39. | |
and everything else, you end up splitting up families. We have never | :22:40. | :22:43. | |
split a family, that is just not true. I have spoken to someone who | :22:44. | :22:47. | |
has been split up. If the child is under 12 cannot be split up, they | :22:48. | :22:53. | |
must together. Well we may get a lot of messages on Twitter after this. | :22:54. | :22:58. | |
And children coming along with luggage, you are also unhappy about | :22:59. | :23:04. | |
that. We are delighted. We have so few free seats. The thing I'm | :23:05. | :23:08. | |
concerned about is whether any children will fly with us from the | :23:09. | :23:13. | |
UK to Europe in April 2000 19. Thank you very much. | :23:14. | :23:16. | |
Carne Ross is a former diplomat who worked for the Foreign Office | :23:17. | :23:20. | |
Here's his take on why - after years working | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
for the government - he now believes in anarchism. | :23:25. | :25:28. | |
And if you want to know more about his journey from diplomat | :25:29. | :25:33. | |
to anarchist then you can find him in a Storyville documentary | :25:34. | :25:36. | |
on the iplayer now - look for Accidental Anarchist. | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
When drug dealers want to get the edge on the competition | :25:41. | :25:42. | |
and produce ever more extreme highs addicts end up taking | :25:43. | :25:45. | |
The laboratory drug Fentanyl, a pain reliever and anaesthetic, | :25:46. | :25:51. | |
is fifty times more potent than heroin and taking it illicity | :25:52. | :25:54. | |
mixed with heroin is described as being like like Russian Roulette. | :25:55. | :25:58. | |
Today the National Crime Agency said that it is responsible | :25:59. | :26:04. | |
for the deaths of at least 60 drug users in Engand and Wales | :26:05. | :26:07. | |
since the beginning of the year and may be implicated | :26:08. | :26:10. | |
Its killing potential is evidence by the figures in America | :26:11. | :26:18. | |
where the 19% rise in drug deaths last year - to 59,000 - | :26:19. | :26:21. | |
We'll assess in a moment what Britain can do | :26:22. | :26:26. | |
But first, I spoke earlier to Assistant Secretary | :26:27. | :26:29. | |
of State William Brownfield - he's responsible for anti-narcotics | :26:30. | :26:31. | |
I started by asking him how the problem with Fentanyl | :26:32. | :26:35. | |
Here in the United States in the late 1990s there was a demand | :26:36. | :26:43. | |
by patients on their doctors and the medical community to provide | :26:44. | :26:47. | |
The doctors, trying to be responsive to their patients, | :26:48. | :26:53. | |
asked for support and help from the American | :26:54. | :26:55. | |
pharmaceutical industry who produced opioids. | :26:56. | :26:59. | |
Not surprisingly as we moved into the 21st century, | :27:00. | :27:05. | |
the prescriptions and growing numbers of people that | :27:06. | :27:07. | |
were regularly using opioids developed eventually | :27:08. | :27:11. | |
into a dependency and an addiction problem. | :27:12. | :27:16. | |
And then as criminal enterprises realised that by using heroin | :27:17. | :27:20. | |
to short-circuit and provide a much cheaper hit than diverted opioids, | :27:21. | :27:28. | |
heroine then came into the market supplanting most of the opioids. | :27:29. | :27:32. | |
And then what we have discovered over the last two or three years | :27:33. | :27:36. | |
is that that same industry discovered that by adding a very | :27:37. | :27:39. | |
inexpensive and easily manipulable product such as Fentanyl | :27:40. | :27:50. | |
into the mix, they can at almost no additional cost to provide a much | :27:51. | :27:53. | |
more effective buzz or high and Bob's your uncle, | :27:54. | :27:57. | |
we have a first-class heroine opioids Fentanyl crisis | :27:58. | :27:59. | |
The likes of which we have not seen for more than 40 years. | :28:00. | :28:17. | |
I want to ask you about this, just to get to grips with it is | :28:18. | :28:21. | |
I mean, the example I use is a business sized envelope. | :28:22. | :28:26. | |
Into which you can easily insert enough Fentanyl that would provide | :28:27. | :28:29. | |
And if you assume perhaps he is getting ten bucks, | :28:30. | :28:32. | |
$10 per hit, you have $10,000 worth of merchandise in a business sized | :28:33. | :28:37. | |
envelope that you can mail at least here in the United States for 49 | :28:38. | :28:41. | |
cents, somewhere in the vicinity I suppose of about 30p | :28:42. | :28:43. | |
Now the Home Secretary, our Home Secretary has been talking | :28:44. | :28:51. | |
about this today because obviously these figures have come out today. | :28:52. | :28:55. | |
But what can we do to counter it before it gets to | :28:56. | :28:58. | |
I will tell you some of the lessons we have learned from here. | :28:59. | :29:06. | |
That in less than two years entire cities go from having no experience | :29:07. | :29:11. | |
with Fentanyl whatsoever to an inundation. | :29:12. | :29:15. | |
Second, education is exceptionally important. | :29:16. | :29:18. | |
Most human beings actually do not wish to kill | :29:19. | :29:21. | |
themselves with a product that they are ingesting, | :29:22. | :29:24. | |
inhaling, or in some way inserting into their system. | :29:25. | :29:31. | |
And education can be tremendously helpful. | :29:32. | :29:40. | |
Education includes by the way how little of the product of the product | :29:41. | :29:43. | |
is Fentanyl or other analogues, can actually kill you. | :29:44. | :29:47. | |
Third you have to have some sort of intelligence system, | :29:48. | :29:50. | |
law enforcement intelligence is geared towards the | :29:51. | :29:51. | |
It does not come from the same production line that | :29:52. | :29:55. | |
produces the heroine, the morphine, or the | :29:56. | :29:57. | |
It comes from a different production line today dominated mostly | :29:58. | :30:04. | |
by the Chinese pharmaceutical industry and to get on top of this | :30:05. | :30:09. | |
you need to have an intelligence network with local law enforcement | :30:10. | :30:12. | |
William Brownfield, thank you very much. | :30:13. | :30:22. | |
Baroness Molly Meacher is a cross bench peer and the chair | :30:23. | :30:29. | |
of the all party parliamentary group on drug use. | :30:30. | :30:31. | |
Professor Sir John Strang is one of Britain's leading experts | :30:32. | :30:33. | |
on addiction and heads the addictions department | :30:34. | :30:35. | |
The evening. I think for many people they will not have heard of this, | :30:36. | :30:49. | |
they will have heard of cocaine and heroin but not Fentanyl but it seems | :30:50. | :30:55. | |
to be utterly deadly. Let us be clear what it is, it is an opioid | :30:56. | :31:01. | |
drug, it is a drug whose effects are very similar to heroin and morphine | :31:02. | :31:08. | |
and those classes of drugs. The particular problem with Fentanyl | :31:09. | :31:12. | |
which is the same as the problem with heroin is that if a slug of the | :31:13. | :31:20. | |
drug is taken, it turns off your respiratory drive, that bit of your | :31:21. | :31:26. | |
brain that sends signals to breathe. You're looking at the science and | :31:27. | :31:31. | |
the addiction together. I wonder if you think that a lot of addicts in | :31:32. | :31:35. | |
this country have sufficient knowledge of the possible impact of | :31:36. | :31:41. | |
Fentanyl when a single grain of this drug could kill you? You're | :31:42. | :31:46. | |
absolutely right. One of the key features of Fentanyl is the small | :31:47. | :31:50. | |
amount that is required to have that effect. In medical practice, that | :31:51. | :31:59. | |
has not been a problem. Fentanyl has been used for around 30 years as a | :32:00. | :32:03. | |
painkiller and anaesthetic because if you are needing to adjust the | :32:04. | :32:08. | |
minute dose in medical practice, you can do so. The problem comes, | :32:09. | :32:15. | |
particularly if you have illicit manufacture. With people who do not | :32:16. | :32:21. | |
know the strength of what they are putting in, that is the problem and | :32:22. | :32:25. | |
that is why it is described as Russian roulette in America. Perhaps | :32:26. | :32:29. | |
they do not care. Illegal drug dealers are trying to make big | :32:30. | :32:35. | |
money. They are not trying to kill their clients, but half the time, | :32:36. | :32:40. | |
they do not realise how dangerous it is. How did this creep up by mass? | :32:41. | :32:47. | |
We have had these laws for 60 years that ban all these. How did Fentanyl | :32:48. | :32:58. | |
as a component creep up on us? The Chinese are exporting it. It comes | :32:59. | :33:03. | |
from China and as we introduced a law about one year ago banning a | :33:04. | :33:08. | |
whole pile of psychoactive substances. These substances are | :33:09. | :33:13. | |
purchased online from China to get around the law, it is impossible to | :33:14. | :33:18. | |
police substances coming in from China directly to the homes of | :33:19. | :33:24. | |
people. The government seems to think... All you have to do is ban | :33:25. | :33:28. | |
things and that is fine but we have to be a great deal more intelligent | :33:29. | :33:34. | |
about the strokes. Interestingly, I wonder if you think that dealers to | :33:35. | :33:45. | |
know how to do this properly. When we saw police covered in outfits, | :33:46. | :33:52. | |
but we watched two policemen in America who were not covered and | :33:53. | :33:56. | |
became sick from inhaling it. The potency of it and the way they mix, | :33:57. | :33:59. | |
it must be under controlled conditions. We can learn a lot by | :34:00. | :34:07. | |
looking at the experience in the US. Very clearly, the product that is | :34:08. | :34:12. | |
put out there in the marketplace, is not carefully titrated. If it was | :34:13. | :34:18. | |
that there was the fine tuning of the dosing, then you would still | :34:19. | :34:21. | |
have your problem of the heroin addiction and its equivalent but you | :34:22. | :34:24. | |
would not have the death rate that comes with it. It is worth pointing | :34:25. | :34:33. | |
out, for those people and those families with a son or daughter | :34:34. | :34:38. | |
involved in this, let us be clear about the partially protective | :34:39. | :34:42. | |
effect of being in treatment. We already know both with heroin | :34:43. | :34:48. | |
overdose and Fentanyl over those that a move into treatment massively | :34:49. | :34:53. | |
reduces your risk of dying. You would hope this would scare people | :34:54. | :34:58. | |
into seeking treatment. It is a hugely important point but then you | :34:59. | :35:02. | |
ask the question about having the capacity to respond and retain | :35:03. | :35:06. | |
people in treatment and the evidence on the whole is that treatment has | :35:07. | :35:12. | |
become less available and more difficult to hold people in | :35:13. | :35:15. | |
treatment. My understanding is that these figures are very start because | :35:16. | :35:20. | |
it is only July and at least 60 with another possible 70 but it is | :35:21. | :35:26. | |
because the wait up -- the toxicology was examined, Fentanyl | :35:27. | :35:29. | |
could have been something that has been growing over the last two or | :35:30. | :35:33. | |
three years. Further products will come out as well. We must not just | :35:34. | :35:39. | |
assume there is just this one. The Chinese are producing new and ever | :35:40. | :35:44. | |
stronger and more complex compounds. How do you stop them getting it into | :35:45. | :35:49. | |
the country? In my view, we have to regulate the way we do these things. | :35:50. | :35:54. | |
Sir John Baird some excellent research into heroin treatment | :35:55. | :36:00. | |
centres, in Switzerland, there are wonderful centres were heroin users | :36:01. | :36:04. | |
get the clean heroin illegally in special treatment centres and | :36:05. | :36:08. | |
through consumption rooms and Durham Police are doing something similar. | :36:09. | :36:13. | |
If we do that, people get their heroin clean, not with Fentanyl edit | :36:14. | :36:17. | |
on the whole thing becomes much more safer. Thank you very much indeed. | :36:18. | :36:21. | |
Apart from the occasional burst of banter over Brexit, | :36:22. | :36:23. | |
politics seems to have packed up its bags and disappeared | :36:24. | :36:26. | |
The snap election was only in June but feels to some | :36:27. | :36:29. | |
But today memories of it were evoked by the publication | :36:30. | :36:33. | |
of a piece of analysis by the British Election Survey team | :36:34. | :36:36. | |
For three decades they've been monitoring the reasons people | :36:37. | :36:39. | |
And today's findings shed some new light on what was going | :36:40. | :36:43. | |
on behind the scenes of that extraordinary election. | :36:44. | :36:45. | |
Our policy editor Chris Cook is here. | :36:46. | :36:49. | |
Chris, what with the surprises? I think one of the things that sheds | :36:50. | :36:56. | |
light on this, it understands the position of Labour on Brexit in | :36:57. | :37:00. | |
particular. We have got a graphic here which is about to pop up which | :37:01. | :37:08. | |
shows the 100 blogs on the left in red representing Labour voters at | :37:09. | :37:13. | |
the 2017 general election, the blue blobs represent the Tory voters. Let | :37:14. | :37:22. | |
us look, using the data, how they voted in the 2016 referendum. What | :37:23. | :37:28. | |
it shows you is that roughly, about 70% of Labour voters voted Remain | :37:29. | :37:35. | |
and 70% of Tory voters voted Leave in the referendum. There is a | :37:36. | :37:39. | |
pleasing symmetry and that leaves people saying why aren't Labour | :37:40. | :37:43. | |
being more assiduous and trying to basically lock picks it? The British | :37:44. | :37:50. | |
election -- but the British Election Survey on thickness. The question as | :37:51. | :37:56. | |
it is what is almost important thing to you and people have to write in | :37:57. | :37:59. | |
what they think the top issue is and what we can do is sweep away all the | :38:00. | :38:03. | |
blogs by people on the screen who did not say break that was the top | :38:04. | :38:08. | |
issue. It shows you that basically there is a huge enthusiasm gap. You | :38:09. | :38:15. | |
bring up the numbers, about 18% of Labour voters are hardline Remain | :38:16. | :38:19. | |
voters and make Brexit is the most important issue compared to 30% of | :38:20. | :38:26. | |
Tory voters. 70% of Labour voters were Remain voters but only a small | :38:27. | :38:29. | |
portion of those still pick it is the most important issue. What is | :38:30. | :38:35. | |
the most important issue? Tuition fees, fox hunting? The amazing thing | :38:36. | :38:38. | |
about this study is there is no silver bullet that explains the | :38:39. | :38:42. | |
election. It is amazing that you would not know from the study that | :38:43. | :38:46. | |
tuition fees even came up or fox hunting, the best we can say is that | :38:47. | :38:51. | |
those things, if they were important, they were important to | :38:52. | :38:55. | |
secondary issues that supported the broader issues and broader images of | :38:56. | :39:00. | |
the two major parties. So was an election that never really was in | :39:01. | :39:04. | |
terms of sparks and passion. There was lots of passion but no clear | :39:05. | :39:10. | |
thrust that damaged fatally or it saved one of the parties. Like very | :39:11. | :39:16. | |
much indeed. A quick look at the front pages. The Guardian revealed | :39:17. | :39:24. | |
that tycoon 's own 652 empty homes in the Grenfell area and there is | :39:25. | :39:27. | |
the new Vogue editor on his first day in the job, the first man to | :39:28. | :39:35. | |
edit the magazine. The Telegraph, green tax ends home energy bills. | :39:36. | :39:41. | |
The Daily Mirror, greedy British Gas boss revealed that cars have gone | :39:42. | :39:42. | |
down but he is putting up prices. | :39:43. | :39:46. |