{"id":1681,"date":"2019-06-20T11:29:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T11:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policecommissioner.net\/trying-to-be-cool-and-failing\/"},"modified":"2019-06-20T11:29:26","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T11:29:26","slug":"trying-to-be-cool-and-failing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/policecommissioner.net\/trying-to-be-cool-and-failing\/","title":{"rendered":"Trying to be \u201ccool\u201d and failing\u2026."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What did you make of the confessions of those hoping to become our next Prime Minister?<\/p>\n<p>Before anyone accuses me of going \u2018all political\u2019, I view\u00a0<a href=\\\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2019\/jun\/10\/tory-hopefuls-prove-you-dont-need-to-be-on-drugs-to-be-off-your-head\\\">their admissions<\/a>\u00a0purely in the context of almost 40 years in policing; and I have to say I was saddened that in apologising for breaking the laws they made, there was little or no insight into what they would do to find a solution to this curse.<\/p>\n<p>Surely, it wasn\u2019t just a ploy to make certain candidates appear \u2018cool\u2019 or more credible as some commentators have suggested? If so, they should consider some of those I met personally after they made the same mistake of embracing class A drugs. What they have in common is they are all dead.<\/p>\n<h3>The Roll Call\u2026<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>A boy in his 20\u2019s, found in a ditch in Cirencester several days after overdosing when his companion had fled with the little cash he had.<\/li>\n<li>A young woman, abandoned by her boyfriend in a flat in Cheltenham, a needle still in her vein.<\/li>\n<li>The call to investigate a young man from Gloucester who died at an international airport when the heroin he had concealed in condoms and swallowed, burst inside him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those are just three; there were many more cases inciting murder, torture, misery and in some cases long prison sentences. Not \u2018cool\u2019 at all.<\/p>\n<p>I truly believe that not all those I recall were bad people, but bad things happened to them and they died; often without sympathy. They offer a very different picture to those of a more privileged class who probably had their \u2018best quality\u2019 cocaine delivered to their door. Contrast that with the less well-connected; impelled to score from a back street dealer supplying questionable gear and trying to move them on from cannabis to heroin as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Some survived but still suffer the psychosis caused by the misuse of \u2018Skunk weed\u2019 and a career-wrecking police caution for what could be considered a relatively minor violation.<\/p>\n<h3>A proper debate<\/h3>\n<p>I do not pretend to have the answer to such a complex issue and there\u2019s no doubt that when the drug debate is laced with cigarettes and alcohol it\u2019s also spiked with a fair amount of hypocrisy.<\/p>\n<p>Ideally, revelations during the leadership contest will provoke a grown-up discussion, but I fear it will prove to be just a point-scoring exercise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What did you make of the confessions of those hoping to become our next Prime Minister? Before anyone accuses me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[60,61,26,47,9,62,10,63],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Trying to be \u201ccool\u201d and failing\u2026. - policecommissioner.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We need a proper debate in this country with regards to our drug laws. 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