What might the world look like if heroin was provided on prescription at local pharmacies? This is not a thought experiment. It used to be the basis of a policy that experts call the “British System” – in the early 1960s in London, the biggest dealer of drugs was Boots the Chemists.
JS Rafaeli is the author of Drug Wars, which documents this history and the crackdown that buried it. His collaborator – Neil Woods – is a retired undercover detective whose experience convinced him the “war on drugs” just made things worse (a story detailed in their first book, Good Cop, Bad War).
In this wide-ranging chat, JS explains how criminalisation has corrupted policing, caused violence to spiral and turned addicts into pyramid salesmen who try to hook others to pay for their fix. Meanwhile, evidence takes a back seat to political agendas, producing policies focused on punishment not public health.
Our conversation considers how to make things safer for everyone concerned, while acknowledging the obstacles to implementing change. In the process, we talk about work to promote wiser policies by organisations such as Transform, and the Law Enforcement Action Partnership in the U.S. and the UK.
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