Has London turned into a drugs capital?
Last night I was again woken from my slumber by police sirens across the road. Again, another house in my street was being raided for drugs.
As the blue and red lights swilred across the street in silence I thought for a minute, “Oh it’s just another drug raid.’ It will be at least the ninth one since I moved into my flat in Februaury this year.
The police have a strong presence in my quaint neighbourhood. Just last week I was walking home when police pounced on a young teenager and questioned him about a series of robberies in my street that day.
And I forgot to mention my flatmates car door was hauled off with a crow bar last night also.
Is it my area? I don’t think so, because this seems to be a common occurance where ever I go leading me to the question, is London a drug capital?
Petty things are stolen for quick cash (to buy drugs), cars are driven and dumped to transport drugs or for a getaway car and police are raiding houses in your very nieghbourhood.
At the end of last year a study of the Thames water revealed the Thames is flowing with cocaine as Londoners snort more than 150,000 lines of the drug every day.
The figure suggests up to 250,000 of London’s 6million residents regularly take cocaine.
The investigation into the Thames water found that, after cocaine had passed through users’ bodies and sewage treatment plants, about 2kg — or 80,000 lines — of the drug went into the river daily.
Meanwhile, in the never ending battle against drugs in the capital, super model Kate Moss will get off scot free for her so public encounter with cocain. Just what the capital needs – a little encouragement from one of it’s most famous exports and role models.
A legal loophole will save the supermodel from being charged over claims that she took cocaine, prosecutors admitted last week.
The 32-year-old was questioned by Scotland Yard after a newspaper published photos from a video taken last September of her apparently snorting large quantities of cocain.
But Rene Barclay, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said the footage could not prove whether the substance was cocaine,ecstasy or amphetamine and whether it was Class A or B.
The CPS must prove beyond reasonable doubt which category of drug is being abused leaving Moss, who admited herself into rehab (is this proof?) free to continue her multi-million pound career.
Meanwhile, in a tiny jail cell in Bali, Indonesia, sits a lonely and distraught Shappelle Corby – a convicted Australian drug smuggler who swears by her innocence and is now serving 20 years for allegedly smuggling 4.1 kilos of cannabis into Bali.
Where is the justice? How can anyone expect to win the war against drugs when celebrities so openly and carelessly promote the use with no effect to their professional careers?
Meanwhile this week the Met police have seized 42 kilos of heroin, worth more than £1 million pounds.
Acting Detective Chief Inspector John Loudon, from Operation Trident, has said the operation, in which three people were arrested, was a complete success.
“This operation demonstrates our determination to disrupt criminal networks involved in the supply of drugs and related gun crime. ”
While the police will continue to fight the battle of drugs in London, one has to wonder if they will ever succeed. Is it perhaps that drugs are too readily available or they are too heavily promoted as harmless fun by celebrities?
London is a unique and vibrant city, but the lives of too many individuals, families and communities are blighted by problems linked to alcohol and drug use.
The growth in alcohol and drug problems and connected rise in violence, crime, family breakdown, homelessness, premature death and ill health threatens the prosperity and well-being of all Londoners..
