The weapons helping police win drugs war
COCAINE use is so widespread in Thanet that you do not have to be a user to find that you are carrying it.
Tell-tale traces from a single swab on the hand revealed even I had some.
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FROM HOUND TO POUND: Drug dealers risk jail time if sniffed out by H and his handler PC Bob Davies
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DRUG WAR TECH: The Ion Track device is used to check swabs of revellers at The Royal
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CLEAN SWEEP: A man is searched outside the Harbour Street Bar after police are alerted by sniffer dogs
A millionth of a gram may not enough to get me arrested but was enough to make me wonder where my hands had been.
Found on banknotes, clothing and even in make-up, these microscopic particles can be spotted by a state-of-the-art Ion Track machine.
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The machine, used by Kent Police in its latest anti-drug campaign, finds potential users by detecting traces of cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy or cannabis from just one swab.
Hand-washing will not hide it.
Since March, more than 800 late-night revellers in Thanet have been checked this way.
The swabs are part of Operation Bounty which targets night-time drug use in Thanet's licensed bars and clubs.
Police licensing officer Nigel Cruttenden was part of the team that swabbed 60 people last Friday at The Royal in Ramsgate.
He said: "We started swabbing in February after we closed Purple in Margate to see just how bad the problem was.
"We found there were high levels of cocaine use so are now trying to find out where the drugs have come from."
If someone swabbed is found with anything under two-millionths of a gram it is likely the person could have picked it up by accident.
Anything beyond that point then alarms bell start ringing.
Mr Cruttenden said: "Anything over two millionths then it is likely the person has had contact recently and they will be searched. "Anything over four and they have been in contact with a substance very recently. A reading level over four with any associated disorder would be enough for us to close a premises."
Five people entering The Royal tested positive and one suspected user was refused entry.
Machines are not the only tool police have to find drugs.
Police Labrador H was once a guide dog for the blind, now six, he sniffs out drugs for the police.
His handler PC Bob Davies says H still tries to guide him as they cross the road.
With his fellow sniffer dog, a boisterous three-year-old named Buster, H spent Friday night roaming Ramsgate's town centre with an entourage of 20 officers and two Thanet council licensing officers.
Prior to police visiting The Royal, H and Buster were taken to 11 licensed premises. Five people were found with drugs.
Three were issued with warnings for possession of cannabis.
Two others, one found with amphetamines and cannabis, the other with cocaine, were arrested and given bail to go to Margate police station at a later date.
Yet Operation Bounty is not just about the punitive approach.
Louis Dawber is a youth drug worker from the Kenward Trust, a charity based in Kent which provides drug and alcohol services for young people in the hope of preventing future use.
Louis, who works and live in Thanet, occasionally joins the police in their spot checks.
He said: "I came to observe the police do their work. To see just what they have to deal with and how deep the drug problem is.
"My concern is with early prevention.
"By going out with the police I can find out which people are at risk at using and give them the support they need. The hope is that by reaching more young people they don't start using in the first place."
For more information about the Kenward trust, go to kenward-trust.org for information and advice on drugs and drug abuse go to www.talktofrank.com
Comments
by Alice_M
Sunday, May 13 2012, 10:07AM
“So if an innocent journalist tests positive, what's to stop the police simply using this as an excuse to search people they don't like the look of.
It is a waste of time and perhaps more importantly, police money to chase after small-time drug users. Whoever enacted this policy ought to be ashamed. The drug war was lost a long time ago. Prohibition has failed. Again.”
by malcolmkyle16
Saturday, May 12 2012, 12:52PM
“Some simple facts:
* Prohibition has been a slow but relentless degradation (death by a zillion cuts) of all our cherished national institutions, that will leave us crippled for numerous generations.
* The USA federal government is now the most dangerous and corrupt corporation on the planet.
* Colombia, Peru, Mexico or Afghanistan with their coca leaves, marijuana buds or poppy sap are not igniting temptation in the minds of our weak, innocent citizens. These countries are duly responding to the enormous demand that comes from within our own borders. Invading or destroying these countries, thus creating more hate, violence, instability, injustice and corruption, will not fix our problem.
* Just as it was impossible to prevent alcohol from being produced and used in the U.S. in the 1920s, so too, it is equally impossible to prevent any of the aforementioned drugs from being produced, distributed and widely used by those who desire to do so.
* Prohibition kills more people and ruins more lives than the drugs it prohibits.
* Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.
* Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement - even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.
* Apart from the fact that the DEA is the de facto enforcement wing of the pharmaceutical industry, the involvement of the CIA in running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, and Cocaine from Central America has been well documented by the 1989 Kerry Committee report, academic researchers Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late journalist Gary Webb.
* It's not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste trillions of dollars in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.
* The United States jails a larger percentage of it's own citizens than any other country in the world, including those run by the worst totalitarian regimes, yet it has far higher use/addiction rates than most other countries.
* In the near future, Obama, Biden, and every single last one of the so called 'drug warriors' will all stand trial for serious crimes against humanity.
* As with torture, prohibition is a grievous crime against humanity. If you support it, or even simply tolerate it by looking the other way while others commit it, you are an accessory to a very serious moral transgression against humanity.
* The United States re-legalized certain drug use in 1933. The drug was alcohol, and the 21st amendment re-legalized its production, distribution and sale. Both alcohol consumption and violent crime dropped immediately as a result, and very soon after, the American economy climbed out of that same prohibition engendered abyss into which it had foolishly fallen.”
by jway86
Friday, May 11 2012, 10:07PM
“When you say "helping police win drugs war", you're not being exactly factual are you since no sane person could ever honestly claim that we're "winning" the drugs war. In fact in the very first paragraph of your article you say "COCAINE use is so widespread...", how is that proof that we're "winning the drugs war"??
We're not winning the drugs war and more importantly we're not ever going to win it either. It's like making alcohol illegal and claiming that one day we could stop people from drinking booze - it's NEVER going to happen and it's a fundamentally harmful thing to impose upon society!
Come back here in another 10, 50 or 1000 years and you'll see that people are still taking drugs and the police are still spending YOUR money and claiming they're "winning" the drugs war.”