Cocaine seizure, Southampton docks, 2011. Dominic Lipinski/PA Archive/PA Images. All rights reserved.I spent 14 years as an undercover cop, infiltrating some of the most dangerous and violent drug gangs in Britain. Over this time I was stripped at gunpoint, had swords held to my throat, knives stuck in my groin, and put my life in acute danger more times than I can count. I was also very effective. Combined, my drug operations put people in prison for a total of well over a thousand years.
This decade-and-a-half at the bleeding edge of British policing led me to a profound and shattering conclusion: that the so-called 'war on drugs' – which I had dedicated so much of my life to fighting – is a futile, self-defeating and horrifically destructive failure. It victimises the most vulnerable in society and corrupts everything it touches. It must be abandoned as soon as possible in favour of a fully legalised and regulated drugs market.
This perhaps sounds like an extreme position for an ex-cop to take. I do not take it lightly. In the book Good Cop, Bad War I trace my own journey from the youthful, naïve idealism with which I first joined the police at 19, to how, recovering from PTSD, I finally felt compelled to leave the force in order to completely dedicate myself to campaigning for this change in policy.
