[Music]
I
get
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gri the
War on Drugs always seemed like a phony
War to me instead of defending our
borders against the invasion of the drug
dealing Body Snatchers our security
forces are usually too busy invading
other people's countries far from
beefing Up Customs and Coast Guards
successive governments have instead been
reducing the labor force almost nobody
gets pulled at the green Channel at
airports as I can testify from this very
morning when hundreds of people went
through Gatwick Airport with me with n
Customs officer or more importantly a
dog in sight and people deal openly in
places we all know including our very
own block some people's response to the
clearly failing War on Drugs is to run
up the white flag and get give it up
others like our first guest go for a
radical change of strategy we'll find
out what that could look like now with
Neil Woods who was 14 years an
undercover police officer posing as an
addict he's written a new book called
good cop bad war and he joins us now
Neil thanks for coming on the Sputnik
it's a remarkable story in a nutshell
what did you do for 14 years well um
I would pose uh sometimes as an addict
as you say sometimes as a sort of
mid-level scul a traveling criminal and
basically my targets were the sort of
middle management gangsters who would
run uh the sort of Regional Supply of
crack cocaine and heroin generally in
inner city areas but in order to do that
I would manipulate problematic heroin
users and sort of move amongst their
sort of
communities and
so over time
uh I realized I mean I realized very
early on that the War on Drugs in its
current form was a ridiculous concept
something that we we couldn't win but
for every year that I did the work and I
would sort of s of have six months of
the time deployments in different cities
for the time that I did the work each
year it gets harder and harder because
as the police increase their tactics and
get more sophisticated in their tactics
there is a natural push back from
organized crime from the gangsters that
I was trying to catch and the biggest
weapon in their arsenal of course is
violence and intimidation and so the
most successful gangsters and the most
successful organized crime groups are
the ones that can most completely
intimidate entire
communities and So eventually I realized
that the reason that gangsters and
organized crime was getting more violent
was in a direct response to me or rather
people like and the the development of
police tactics and and that there is an
inevitability to that you know in any
unregulated
Market monopolies appear and this is the
most lucrative unregulated Market in the
world so in order to take away the power
of organized crime we need to get drugs
under control and regulate
them well we'll come back to that I've
just literally gotten off a plane from
Canada Vancouver one of the world's
loveliest cities beautiful setting
British Colombia uh it has an image
downtown in other words in the center of
Vancouver is a district which is
literally swarming you can't see this
the pavement the sidewalk for derel
people devastated by drugs all gathered
in one area area where presumably some
kind of Regulation is going on in the
sense that they're getting needles
getting at least alternative supplies
they're not actually heroin or even
crack addicts mainly it's a drug I'd
never heard of called is it franol uh
fentel fentanyl which devastates
hundreds of people kills them hundreds
of people every year in Vancouver um so
what are we going to do about this well
fentel is an interesting one it's it is
heroin addicts that use fenil because it
is it is an opioid it's just a
particularly strong opioid and the
criminal markets are latching onto
fentanyl because it's quite it's um in
terms of its volume it can be it's more
portable it's more portable it's quite
useful told me there yeah so it's very
useful for them to do but Canada's an
interesting
um particularly Vancouver is a very
interesting City to compare
the situation with the UK because um in
Vancouver they have this organization
called Insight where people have safe
consump safe injection rooms so people
can go and they can use their drugs
safely and they're not they're not dying
they can receive health care and to date
no one has died of an overdose in a drug
in a in a safe injection site and so the
deaths from drugs in Canada has been
dropping dramatically the amount of
healthc care addicts get in Canada is
increasing and if you compare that with
the UK we've had three years running of
record deaths so things are not going
right here and actually the situation in
the politics in Canada is a very good
place to look to for how to improve
things the Canadian government has just
approved uh prescribing heroin in the
first instance to people who need it
that's why I raise it uh if that's the
kind of Regulation you mean that is
running up the White Flag isn't it
because people who are already hooked
are just going to find more easy and
safe to be hooked yeah the the great
danger in drug policy is to judge people
and if for to decide that someone else
has to get off their drug that sort of
DCT dictates what policy you're going to
take every problematic heroin user that
I manipulated and I did manipulate
people I put them in more danger I made
their lives worse all of those people
the prostitutes people who relied on
stealing for their for their lives they
are being manipulated by organized crime
they are being used by gangsters they
could be rescued from that life by
prescribing them heroin in the first
instance and then should they choose to
to seek treatment then they could be
provided treatment in a safe environment
well I must say I disagree with you
profoundly uh I do judge people uh who
are addicted to drugs that are going to
kill them destroy the circle around them
uh corrode and de away at The Wider
Society I make a judgment on that and I
think the state needs to make a judgment
on that your proposal is effectively
that the state becomes the dealer are
you saying that if there's no demand for
the criminals they their their
activities would decrease or what I'm
saying is there is evidence that
punitive measures don't impact on demand
that's a different matter yeah that's a
practical Point yeah so but to get to
the point about the government being the
dealer rather than organized crime well
in the to start with I would say it is
better for the government to be the
dealer than organized crime gangs
because why not set up brothel and we
can be the pimp as well let's let's
tackle the fact that that you you judge
those people because most people do
morally judge people who have become
addicted to heroin now most of the
people that I I came across were broken
people who were self-medicating for
something one particular person whose
street name was um in Northampton and
she said I can come of heroin and I do
sometimes but when I do I become
suicidal so I so I stay on it and the
reason that she becomes suicidal is
because the memory of the sexual abuse
that she received as a child was too
much for her to cope with now any drug
counselor will tell you that around
2third of problematic heroin users are
self-medicating for either childhood
physical or sexual abuse so to
criminalize people who essentially need
help is not only counterproductive it's
cruel well I'm not saying criminalize
them I'm saying criminalize the people
who are selling them let me turn to that
I I sat in Parliament for almost 30
years heard all the rhetoric about the
war on drugs but I I never actually felt
there was a war going on do you do you
share that I mean the effort certainly
to protect our borders is pitiful the
action that you can take in policing or
with Borders or or any aspect of the
attempt to control drugs with with the
mechanics of the state and policing are
doomed to failure the demand is too high
I mean compare it with normal crimes
because drugs drugs is a policing issue
really to stand out compare it for
example with
burglary any Police Inspector or
detective sergeant in this country knows
that you can catch two burglar and you
can reduce the crime in a town or maybe
even half a county you can reduce those
burglaries by catching a people because
by catching those to a degree you're
reducing the demand it's a very small
number of people committing those things
but policing cannot impact on the demand
in society for drugs and the punitive
measures do not put people off you know
people are not this rational actor that
make a decision about drug taking that
they may get into trouble it just
doesn't happen no not the addicts but
the businessmen are
gangsters sometimes
interchangeable well yeah I mean they
are user there are user dealers going to
be affected by two things the likelihood
of being caught and the punishment if
and when they are caught that's ABC of
policing isn't it um it would seem the
intuitive view to take but actually the
amount of money that's involved in the
drug Supply it doesn't put anybody body
off at all bear in mind I spent a long
time working very hard in the front line
of the War on Drugs that and and I've
I've put people away for and and you
sacrificed some of your Health you you
were damaged by The Experience am I
right yeah but I've come out the other
side of that Health healthier than ever
um but you know I put people in prison
for over a thousand years and I caught
some really nasty nasty gangsters but as
police intelligence
shows I only ever interrupted the drug
Supply in each City for around two hours
there is always someone going to step up
now okay I I understand that people's
reaction is to say well that doesn't
mean we should give up yeah but it as is
the case with many wars the only way to
truly win is to declare peace because
this this is a this is an arms race
there's no chance of deescalation in
this war when when I when I say that
organized crime gets more and more
vicious in response to policing I'm not
exaggerating and there's no limit to
where that can go I'm going to read your
book because it looks like uh I need to
be challenged on my point of view
but if you'd taken that walk down
Hastings with me in downtown Vancouver
yesterday and seen the Pavements black
with devastated dect people I don't
think you'd be quite so Keen to suggest
it as a model Neil it's a fascinating
discussion and I look forward to reading
the book and I hope many other people do
also thanks for joining us thank you
coming up next 15 years on we talked to
the founding chairman of the stop the
war Coalition and leading British trade
unionist Andrew
[Music]
Murray welcome back to Sputnik 15 years
ago a small group of people of whom I
was one knew that 911 was a harbinger of
great storms to come and formed the stop
thew Coalition the largest mass movement
in British history its founding chairman
was one of the leaders of Britain's
largest Trade union unite and but for a
brief internum when the chairmanship
passed to Jeremy Corbin before he had to
hand it back having been elected leader
of the labor party Andrew Murray has
been the chairman for almost all the
time since and he joins us now Andrew
the conference uh today uh is looking
back at that 15 years what are your main
Reflections yourself well the main
reflection is it's tragic we still have
to have a stop the war Coalition after
15 years that the war on terror which we
were United to oppose in 2001 is still
continuing it's still causing
Devastation across so much of the planet
so while it is important to look back
and of course there are many inspiring
memories from those 15 years uh we also
have to look ahead to the very near
future where we still have to bring this
war on terror to an end and oppose the
really growing danger of even bigger
conflicts superpower conflicts around
Syria Ukraine uh and so on so
unfortunately uh Britain still needs a
strong uh Mass anti-war campaigning
movement uh and I think the conference
will be as much focused on that as it
will be on uh on reflecting on what has
uh has been an extraordinary history
over the last yes it's not that any of
the conflicts 15 years ago have ended no
the battles in Afghanistan now involve
Al-Qaeda fighting Isis for power uh when
the foreign armies finally uh leave uh
in Syria and in Ukraine we'll come to
them uh there are flash points that
could uh produce Wars that are that
dwarf the wars we've already seen but
let me run this past you I'm actually
quite
surprised uh the Bourbons it was said uh
learned nothing and forgot nothing our
leaders and our fourth estate our
media appears to be
like the Bourbons they don't have any
there's no sense a cintilla of
reflection or self- reproach or
self-criticism they're saying the same
things and proposing to do the same
things that were so disastrous last time
around well it's even a bit more bizarre
than that from one point of view they
embark on a war it's then in due course
acknowledged to be a disaster we had the
chilot report about Iraq more recently
we've had the Comm committee report on
Libya saying it's a disaster and
everyone that acknowledges that was a
disaster or more or less everyone
acknowledges that was a disaster and
then they go on to another one they are
impelled to carry on trying to impose
their will on countries that don't want
to have the will of Britain and the USA
imposed on them uh they it always ends
in disaster you're absolutely right not
only has the war been going on for 15
years in aggregate not a single aspect
of that war has ever come to an end
whether it's Afghan anistan Iraq Libya
Syria Yemen of course now as well so
there is a blindness and even though
they say from time to time oh we got
that one wrong it doesn't lead to enough
pause for thought before they embark on
the next conflict and meanwhile the
effects of it are reaching the people
here in Britain through the refug part
of the war isn't it the the the attack
on our own Liberties the refugee crisis
and so on well when the stop the war
Coalition was formed as well as our main
objective being to stop the war then the
war in Afghanistan primarily we also
said we have two other objectives to
oppose a racist backlash and to defend
civil liberties because we foresaw that
those would become issues that would
arise out of the conflict and that's
what uh has been proved absolutely true
uh the refugee crisis now is directly
connected to the war very directly and
intimately and of course it is then used
by politicians on the right and not only
on the right to stimulate a sort of
xenophobic xenophobic feelings so this
war like like most wars in the last 100
150 years is not simply a war fought
somewhere else with with no domestic
consequences the sort of um tendrils of
this war reach deep into our own Society
why though are they fools or are they
naves are they James Bond or or Austin
Powers uh why have they learned nothing
why do they keep doing it well my my
analysis I think is shared by a lot of
people in stop the war would say this is
uh A variation on imperialism it's a Neo
Imperialism of course people can look at
it and look at it from other aspects but
the the Hallmarks of imperialism
neocolonialism the drive for hegemony
the drive to secure resources uh the
drive to order the whole world uh around
the interests of a few great powers are
all very much uh at play you take any
particular conflict of course there are
nuances there are other aspects and we
we can't say that the peoples of the
Middle East and South Asia simply pawns
on a chessboard nevertheless there is uh
uh imperialism uh in my view uh which
has been set back and defeated from time
to time but is Undead uh is at the root
of it now you wrote a novel some years
ago now in which you with great precence
I I may now add uh looked forward or at
least uh in the direction forward to a
time when an actual superpower conflict
could be sparked in one of these
hotspots Syria Ukraine maybe
both we're quite close to that now well
we are I mean that was a book I wrote In
the 1990s flasho World War I it had a
sort of Novel introduction and then went
into more non-fictional analysis and uh
I argued then really looking ahead that
a war could break out over the Ukraine
um I identified the flash point as been
Lov in the western Ukraine rather than
dbass and eastern Ukraine but but yes
this logic because in the 1990s you'll
remember George it was a sort of new
world order a world order there supposed
to be peace and uh uh All the Troubles
are supposed to have been ended with the
ending of the Soviet Union and I was
then arguing that quite the reverse was
true this would unleash new sorts of
conflicts uh and the three broad areas
I'd identified then which didn't take a
lot of uh great skill but were the
Middle East Eastern Europe around the
Ukraine and the Far East and in each of
those now we haven't talked about the
Pacific get the confrontations between
the United States and its allies pushing
against China uh these could lead to uh
much bigger Wars and if we consider the
breakdown complete breakdown of us
Russian relations over Syria uh the
tensions in the Ukraine caus primarily
by NATO's move eastwards pushing
eastwards uh and the uh the fact that
the United States can't easily
accommodate the rise of Chinese power in
what is after all China's own backyard
uh all of these in the name South China
Sea South China Sea that is a clue it's
not the Far West American
sea uh so and all of these history
teaches us that all of these things can
lead to Wars and of course in the past I
mean in our lifetimes that normally went
this s nuclear standoff between two
great powers and perhaps a war like that
remains happily very unlikely but some
sort of escalation uh a dramatic
escalation bringing in big Powers uh
into these conflicts uh which have um
either been stirred up or at worst uh
exacerbated by us and British
intervention that is a real danger well
in Syria they are I mean their airplanes
are in the same airspace there are
missiles flying through the same air uh
Russia has taken the fight to Isis and
Al-Qaeda and the foreign invasion of
Syria uh to the front line and the
United States is increasingly angry
about it it doesn't take much of an
accident for an actual Clash between
these two superpowers to take place well
not at all and I mean although you and I
would have criticisms of President
Obama's uh foreign policy uh I fear that
whoever is elected as the next US
president will be deterioration I mean
just um yesterday or the day before John
McCain a very senior member of the US
Senate he was arguing for the US to
impose a um a no fly on Syria impose a
no fly zone saying shooting down any
Syrian regime planes and making the
environment unsafe or hostile for
Russian planes well this is a recipe for
war now at the moment I don't imagine
President Obama is likely to go down
that line President Clinton um well much
more likely and for president trump it
would be unwise to try and anticipate
what might uh uh happen as long as it
doesn't involve a Mexican beauty queen
uh so uh uh who would want that finger
on the trigger uh so so these are real
fall over and and press it yes indeed so
we're actually in a far more danger I
mean you and I grew up and did uh took
sides in a in a cold war environment
where we kind of knew but for the Cuban
uh Missile Crisis we kind of knew that
it wasn't going to lead to a hot War uh
the Soviet Union was led by by sober and
realistic people and up to a point so
was the United States I mean even Nixon
when you think back now Nixon to Trump
is Long Way um but we are now in this
perilous position where either Godzilla
one wins or Godzilla 2 wins either the
cold calculating killary Clinton or the
madman that's a terrifyingly dangerous
Prospect it is it is it is more
dangerous from that point of view than
it's been at any time since the end of
the second World War I mean for the
reasons you've outlined a nuclear uh
confrontation between the USA and the
Soviet Union certainly post Cuba uh
Missile Crisis is always unlikely now
perhaps because the threshold is lowered
somewhat that no one is in any of these
scenarios happily
anticipating missiles been fired at uh
Pittsburgh or St Petersburg uh but that
there is still a l in level of
Confrontation of the United States power
thrashing around most obviously in the
Middle East but also in other parts of
the uh of the world not coping with a
reality that the unipolar world they
imagined post the cold war is breaking
up uh our objective in the stop the war
has been obviously to bring these
arguments to the British people but also
to
detach uh Britain the British government
the British people from this
following United States into one war
after another there's a limit to what we
can do about us politics or Russian
politics uh but we can focus on that and
I think stop that's where stop the wars
impact has been despite the the borbon
Tendencies You identified uh there is
also evidently a greater reluctance not
reluctance enough a greater reluctance
to plunge headlong into uh conflicts
particularly if they uh involve uh boots
on the ground now I'm not can't
complacent about that there's British
troops being moved into the Baltic and
so on and Secret boots on the ground in
Syria for sure not very secret well the
best of luck with the conference sorry I
can't be there best of luck to the stop
the war Coalition thank you very
much and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what's rling gri so on the
War on Drugs a euroman and activist says
the so-called War on Drugs was another
The Invention by the USA to keep the
military complex spending high and on
the war on terror Ricardo Picasso says
we have learned what stopped the war
already knew going around bombing people
solves nothing and maybe future
governments will have learned that when
2 million people protest listen to them
well as Einstein said doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting
a different result is the very
definition of madness madness indeed
well that's all we have for today which
alas means that's the end of the show
but you can stay in touch with us on
social media on Twitter at rtor Sputnik
or on Facebook Sputnik on Russia today
it's goodbye from me gatri and from me
George Galloway it's been
[Music]
marvelous