In short
Neil Woods argues the UK’s “war on drugs” (prohibition) has failed and should be replaced by legal government control of drug supply, with regulation tailored by drug type to reduce organised crime and improve public health.
Guest backgrounds
Neil Woods is a former UK police officer (23 years), including 14 years undercover infiltrating drug gangs (from 1993; major operation in 2004 against the “Burger Bar Boys” in Birmingham). He later became a prominent campaigner for drug policy reform. He says his undercover work led to complex PTSD and “moral injury,” and he has used psychedelics as part of his own recovery.
Key claims
Prohibition “surrenders control,” fuels transnational organised crime, and increases harms (including violence and overdoses). Seizures/arrests don’t shrink the market. Regulation would allow ID checks, dosing limits, harm-reduction advice, and safer purity.
Notable examples
UK heroin prescribing ended after the late-1960s; Switzerland’s heroin-assisted treatment since 1994; Switzerland’s harm-reduction shift (take-home doses). He cites Switzerland and the Netherlands for reduced heroin consumption, and claims UK drug deaths exceed 5,500 last year. He discusses Canada’s cannabis mistakes (too commercial; price too high). For MDMA, he argues deaths largely stem from adulteration/overstrength.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VONeil's Perspective on Drug Prohibition
5:00 to 5:53
Neil discusses the failure of drug prohibition and its impacts on society.
“Legalising drugs is a kind of giant, easy headline, but this is not an easy issue and there are many different kinds of drugs and many different ways of legalising them.”
The Case for Regulating the Drug Market
5:53 to 8:29
Neil advocates for government control and regulation of the drug market.
“It's created a behemoth of transnational organised crime, which is gradually corrupting entire nation states, not just individual bureaucrats or politicians or police officers.”
Historical Context of Drug Policy
8:29 to 9:21
Neil compares British and American approaches to drug addiction and policy.
“But because the United States bankrolled the Second World War, and we still owed money from the First World War, that gave America extraordinary political power to dominate really international policy.”
Neil's Undercover Experience with Drug Gangs
9:21 to 10:39
Neil shares his personal experiences infiltrating drug gangs and its psychological toll.
“there would be front-page headlines day after day.”
Lessons from Infiltrating the Burger Bar Boys
10:39 to 14:01
Neil recounts significant moments from his operation against a notorious gang.
“In fact, the first time I bought crack cocaine, it was relatively straightforward.”
The Reality of Undercover Operations
14:01 to 15:11
Neil Woods shares his harrowing experience in a drug operation, highlighting the trauma involved.
“And in fact, I'm sure now looking back that at the commencement of that operation in 2004, I already had PTSD.”
The Impact of Drug Operations on Communities
15:12 to 17:09
Woods discusses the unintended consequences of police drug operations on community violence and market dynamics.
“seven months of work and being quite convinced I was going to die on multiple occasions, much of that operation will account for the mental health mess that I got myself into later for the sake of that two hours.”
The Growing Demand for Drugs
17:10 to 17:37
Exploration of the increasing demand for drugs like cocaine and the implications for society.
“The demand is there and it's increasing.”
Heroin Prescription and the British System
17:38 to 19:31
Discussion on the historical context of heroin prescription in the UK and its effects.
“Well, let's go to the hardest end of the spectrum, go back to heroin.”
Switzerland's Harm Reduction Approach
19:32 to 21:23
Woods analyzes Switzerland's model for drug harm reduction and its effectiveness.
“The reason we have heroin being dealt by children in this country is because the police are so good at catching the dealers.”
Show all 27 chapters
Government Prescription of Drugs
21:24 to 22:55
Discussion on the potential framework for government prescriptions of heroin and its implications.
“So you have to jump through those hoops.”
Morality and Drug Policy Reform
22:56 to 24:17
Woods addresses the moral arguments surrounding drug policies and the push for reform.
“There will be some people listening to this who just think it is morally wrong for the government, particularly through doctors, to enable people to be using harmful drugs.”
Drug Use Trends and Prohibition
24:18 to 25:14
Analyzing the trends in drug use among youth and questioning the efficacy of prohibition.
“show that the number of young people using drugs that has actually been falling over the past decade or so.”
Regulating Cannabis: Lessons from Other Countries
25:43 to 28:00
Woods discusses the regulation of cannabis and the lessons learned from international examples.
“Don't forget you can subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sound so you always know about future episodes.”
The Black Market and Cannabis Pricing
28:00 to 29:00
Explore how age limits and pricing affect the black market for cannabis.
“If there was an age limit, though, wouldn't there still be a black market?”
The Impact of Prohibition on Cannabis
29:00 to 30:50
Discuss the harms of cannabis under prohibition and the iron law of prohibition.
“It's like with alcohol prohibition in the United States, within a few weeks no one could get beer anymore, they could only get spirits because who's going to smuggle beer?”
Regulating MDMA and Other Drugs
30:50 to 32:53
Understand the potential benefits of regulating drugs like MDMA to improve safety.
“by balancing with the CBD in the product.”
Cocaine: Risks and Regulation
32:53 to 34:36
Analyze the risks associated with cocaine and how regulation could mitigate them.
“You could, but it'd be much more effective if you've got regulatory control over those products.”
The Dangers of MDMA and Regulation
34:36 to 36:29
Examine the risks of MDMA and the importance of regulatory control to minimize harm.
“It could be that people are just taking higher quantities.”
The Case for Drug Regulation in the UK
36:29 to 38:09
Debate the moral implications and potential benefits of drug regulation in the UK.
“You talk about MDMA and the risks associated with adulterated supply or people drinking too much water or alcohol alongside, but there are other risks too.”
Challenges and Alternatives to Prohibition
38:40 to 41:11
Discuss alternatives to prohibition and lessons from international models.
“But when we're talking about organised crime and criminal gangs, they're not going to go away if we go for the approach that you're advocating.”
The Global Context of Drug Regulation
41:11 to 42:00
Explore the global implications of drug regulation and environmental concerns.
“It's called the Comparators Report, which did just that.”
International Regulation of Drug Trade
42:00 to 45:00
The discussion centers on the need for an international regulatory system for drug trade to combat the harms of prohibition.
“is the government going to be doing business with cartels?”
Personal Journey and Drug Use
45:00 to 48:59
Neil Woods shares his personal experiences with drug use and the impact it has had on his mental health and advocacy work.
“After doing this campaigning for years, you have only recently been open about your own use of illegal drugs.”
The Efficacy of Psychedelics
48:59 to 52:35
The conversation explores the emerging evidence supporting the therapeutic use of psychedelics for mental health treatment.
“I've been having a look at the kind of official responses in the UK and the US.”
Drug Policy Debate in the UK
52:35 to 55:20
A discussion on the shifting debates surrounding drug policy in the UK and the potential for change in regulation approaches.
“Can we trust that they will take drugs and not drive, for example, or take drugs and not be looking after kids?”
Complexity of Drug Legalization
56:01 to 56:54
Explore the complexities and challenges of drug legalization proposals.
“It's something that Neil really deeply believes, but it's such a complex issue.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day, but what policy changes should investors be watching? Listen to Washington Wise, an original podcast for investors from Charles Schwab, to hear the stories making news in Washington right now. Host Mike Townsend, Charles Schwab's Managing Director for Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, takes a non-partisan look at the stories that matter most to investors, including policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes and trade, inflation concerns, the Federal Reserve, and how regulatory developments can affect companies, sectors, and even the entire market.
0:44Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and follow at schwab.com slash Washington Wise, or wherever you listen.
0:57Jenny Kleeman:Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription. Hello, I'm Gabriel Gatehouse and before this week's episode of Radical, a quick word about next week's guest. Have you thought about what you want to happen to your body when you die? Burial? Cremation, maybe? Christopher Hughes has a different idea. It's called teramation, where your body gets turned into soil.
1:39Jenny Kleeman:It's basically human composting. It's legal in some parts of America, but not here in the UK. Not yet, anyway. Christopher wants to change that. He spent more than 30 years as a mortuary technician for coroners in the UK and across the world. He's come across different approaches to death on his travels, but composting, he says, makes the most sense to him. It's a fascinating idea, but also one that potentially has a radical impact on those we leave behind. As ever, we want your help examining the issue. So please send us your questions for Christopher, which we'll feature in our bonus Q &A podcast after the main show.
2:21Jenny Kleeman:You can leave us a WhatsApp voice note on plus 44 330 123 9480 or you can email us. The address is radical at bbc.co.uk. And now, on with this week's show.
2:46Jenny Kleeman:Hello and welcome to Radical, conversations about the underlying forces reshaping our world and the radical ideas that could define the future. I'm Jenny Kleeman and today I'll be speaking to someone who argues we should be taking a completely different approach to the problem of drugs. For more than half a century, Britain's approach to drugs has been rooted in prohibition. Successive governments have spent billions trying to disrupt supply, punish dealers and deter use. Yet illegal drugs remain widely available. Drug-related deaths are at the highest level since records began, and organised crime continues to profit from a vast underground market.
3:27Jenny Kleeman:My guest this week thinks this is evidence that the war on drugs was the wrong idea from the start. His name is Neil Woods, and he spent 23 years as a police officer, including 14 years working undercover infiltrating drugs gangs. He convinced dealers he was an addict, gathered evidence against high-level figures, and repeatedly put his life on the line in operations that earned him numerous plaudits. But those years and those experiences eventually convinced Neil that enforcing the law wasn't providing any practical benefit for society. It was only causing harm. So, after leaving the police, he started a new career, becoming one of the UK's most prominent campaigners for drug policy reform.
4:13Jenny Kleeman:His radical proposal is that we should completely change our approach to drugs in this country, not simply by decriminalising possession, but crucially by taking legal control of the drugs market itself, allowing government to regulate a market it now prohibits, pushing out organised crime and improving public health. This is a controversial and very complex topic. There are many opponents to Neil's ideas, and of course we know some drugs can come with serious impacts on physical and mental health. But as always on this podcast, we'll approach the conversation with an open mind and a critical lens.
4:51Jenny Kleeman:So with that in mind, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Neil Woods.
4:59Jenny Kleeman:Neil Woods, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for inviting me. Legalising drugs is a kind of giant, easy headline, but this is not an easy issue and there are many different kinds of drugs and many different ways of legalising them. So what exactly are you advocating? I'm advocating for taking control because prohibition is the surrendering of control. I mean, the whole point of drug policy, the 1961 single convention and the conventions that followed from the United Nations was to achieve a drug-free world. That was the aim of those treaties. And that's the aim of the legislation that each country brought into place following those treaties.
5:45Since Prohibition began, the numbers of people using drugs have increased more than the size of population increases. So it's constantly accelerating. So it's failed. Prohibition has failed. It's created a behemoth of transnational organised crime, which is gradually corrupting entire nation states, not just individual bureaucrats or politicians or police officers. So, you know, my background is in policing. So to me, this is a law enforcement issue. This is about beating organised crime. And for many within the drug law reform community, actually, the L word, legalise, is a bit of a dirty word because it conjures ideas of a lack of control, maybe wanton human behaviour.
6:33But we are talking about taking control here. We're talking about regulation.
6:38Jenny Kleeman:So how would this work in practice? If you're decriminalising possession of drugs, would you also be expecting the government to take control of the supply? How would that work? well people talk about the actual terminology is important here because people talk about decriminalization and decriminalization is merely ending the criminality of people who possess and use drugs what i'm talking about is taking control of the market which to is to make the actual the sale and supply and production of drugs legal and controlled by by government by government regulation, whether that's through regulation with private people or actually my choice would be government monopoly for the greatest control.
7:24And you've already mentioned that there are lots of different types of drugs and people take different drugs for different reasons. So the regulation needs to be very carefully worked out and it needs to be specific for each drug because some drugs are more dangerous than others. Actually, the easiest drug to legally regulate is heroin because it causes the most harm by some considerable way not in terms of societal harm but as harm to the individual and is more dangerous in terms of overdoses and that is what we used to do in this country we used to control the supply so the british system up until the end of the 1960s meant that if you developed a problem with drugs you would go to a doctor and you would get help and that was the british system since 1928, very simple, pragmatic approach.
8:12The British system saw addiction as an unfortunate medical condition, whereas the United States saw addiction as a moral failing that should be criminalised. So there were two opposing worldviews internationally, the British system and the American system. But because the United States bankrolled the Second World War, and we still owed money from the First World War, that gave America extraordinary political power to dominate really international policy. And with drug policy, that meant we adopted the American system. At the end of the 1960s, when we still had the British system in place, anyone who had a heroin addiction could go to a doctor and get a prescription.
8:55And that system was then ended. We could go back to that. And we have a very good example of that because in 1994, Switzerland used British evidence to inform their policy, and they've been prescribing heroin to people who need it since then.
9:11Jenny Kleeman:Yeah. And they don't have the crime that we have. And last year we had over 5 ,500 drug deaths in this country. You know, if you had that many people dying of road deaths, there would be front-page headlines day after day. It would be public outcry demanding we did something about it. Well, in Switzerland, they did do something about it. I want to drill down on the detail of this for specific drugs and particularly heroin, because these are huge claims and also really interesting trip back into our own history, quite recent history. But before I do, I think it would be useful for our listeners to know your personal experience of this, because you were on the front line of the war against drugs for years.
9:56Jenny Kleeman:Tell us about that. so um i've been in the police for about four years i wasn't a very good uniformed police officer in fact i was terrible almost lost my job a few times i didn't take to the team environment or deal with confrontation particularly well if i'm honest and i was a very young 19 year old when i started but i started doing undercover work almost by accident with the drug squad in 1993 and quickly found something I was pretty good at, infiltrating drug dealing gangs all over England. I did that for 13 years. Not all of the time, but a very large proportion of that time. It got more and more dangerous as time went on.
10:40In fact, the first time I bought crack cocaine, it was relatively straightforward. And as I walked away, the guy said to me, you take care now, don't get yourself arrested, which I thought was very considerate. But of course he went to jail and spoke to other people amongst organised crime and they knew that the cops had a new tactic. So it became instantly more dangerous, not just for me, it became more dangerous for everybody else that existed within that marketplace because organised crime had to become more ruthless and threatening to counter to this threat. So initially I was very excited.
11:19I was very thrilled as a young man to find myself being admired by some colleagues for being good at something. You know, it boosted my ego. And I enjoyed that intellectual challenge. In fact, it makes me sound like a sociopath, I suppose. But I enjoyed the intellectual challenge of maintaining a lie for several months in a community. This thrilled me, it did, to develop those manipulative tools, so to speak. But in order to blend in to the problematic drug-taking community, I had to observe them, to be like them. And that meant having long conversations and being interested in them. And I learnt that every single person who was problematically using heroin and crack cocaine, and many people, both of them, they were all self-medicating for childhood trauma.
12:11It was either sexual abuse or physical abuse or neglect. And they all, all of them had a story. Now I'd gone into that job with a very stigmatised point of view. I judged people who had a problem with drugs because, you know, I'd seen Nancy Reagan on TV. You know, I thought, didn't you take the warnings, you know. So I just saw them as stupid enough to have tried the drugs and that was it. But I realised this isn't a chemical hook that was going on. This is self-medicating for deep seated trauma. So over time I started to feel quite, I suppose guilty is the word, because I knew I was causing harm to these vulnerable people because many of them were committing offences.
13:00I wasn't after them. I was after the gangsters that they would introduce me to. But I was still gathering evidence.
13:06Jenny Kleeman:But you were good at what you did. I mean, you put a lot of people in prison. I did, yeah. Can you think of any time where you might have said that you did some good? You put some bad people off the streets, stopped the supply to vulnerable people? Well, that's what kept me going, you see. I thought I can justify this because the end justifies the means. I'm causing harm to these vulnerable people, but at the end of the seven-month operation, I'll put some nasty people behind bars. It's got to be worth it, right? It's going to be making society safer. But I learned that that thought was folly.
13:42And one of the things that taught me that was when I infiltrated the Burger Bar Boys, a very infamous gang based out of Birmingham. At the time that I was briefed for this operation, it was only a few months before that they'd committed two murders of two young women in Birmingham. One of the targets was implicated in seven different murders. So they were dangerous people. And in fact, I'm sure now looking back that at the commencement of that operation in 2004, I already had PTSD. So I was piling on the trauma on top and at no point in their company did I feel safe at all. It was appalling. At one time, they stripped me, showing me a gun to search me for a wire.
14:27They were threatening, they'd assaulted me, but I stuck with it for seven months. And I remember standing in the secret location, which is, you know, it's all cocooned from normal policing, it's separate from normal policing, and seeing the whiteboards all stretched out. And if you've ever seen a drama where you have whiteboards and photographs and lines between them, it's exactly like that.
14:46Jenny Kleeman:Really? I've always thought that was dramatic. No, no, it's exactly like that. And they're all stretched out, you know, they bring more whiteboards in. But there was 96 people I'd gathered evidence against, including the six main targets. And I thought, wow, this is just going to sweep the town clean. This is going to be incredible. It's going to be the most impactive job I've done. There's hundreds of police brought in from five different counties. Massive arrest phase. But then the intel officer, which was the dedicated intel cop for the operation, spoke to me afterwards and said, yep, we managed to interrupt the drug supply for a full two hours.
15:23seven months of work and being quite convinced I was going to die on multiple occasions, much of that operation will account for the mental health mess that I got myself into later for the sake of that two hours.
15:35Jenny Kleeman:But do you believe that, that it was just two hours? Or was that not just something someone was saying to you? No, because I'd been at this for years and I was resisting the evidence before my eyes and the things that I heard day in, day out. and this was just you know the clarification of thoughts that were that were forming in my mind one of the problems is that this you know and thank you for talking about this today on the on this show because the public really needs to understand that when these things are celebrated as a success and believe me the police media machine and the and the echoing and the picking up of journalists at that event celebrated this as a huge success and of course yeah the six gangsters were locked up and lots of people were arrested.
16:17But the trouble is, when the police have an operation like that, more often than not, violence goes up in a community, not down. Because if you create a gap in that market, two or more actors will compete over that gap. Or sometimes you get an uptick in overdoses because two gangs, if they don't compete with violence, they'll compete with price and people's consumption go up because it's the disruption of the market and that did happen i've not so long ago met up with the with the senior investigating officer for that operation he says yeah the gang that took over afterwards their violence was even worse and this is what's perpetually happening with the drug market because the size of the market increases each year no police activity reduces the size of that market none of it so So you're assuming that the demand will just always be there?
17:11The demand is there and it's increasing. I mean, the cocaine market has been growing. The demand was high anyway, but for the last few years, the price has plummeted, maybe because transnational organised crime want to stimulate the demand even further. But there is a massive demand and humans have always taken drugs. That's why we have a responsibility to make those choices as well informed and as safe as possible for those that choose to do so.
17:40Jenny Kleeman:Well, let's go to the hardest end of the spectrum, go back to heroin. You were talking there about this time in British history where doctors would prescribe heroin to addicts. And I was remembering Keith Richards' autobiography, Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones, which I read, where there's a section in it where he talks about how he had a couple of drug addicts, a man and a woman, who he gave free accommodation to. And in exchange, they would go to the doctor and overestimate their level of dependence need for heroin and they would give him half. How could you stop that from happening, that kind of thing?
18:15Jenny Kleeman:I mean, not everyone has a cottage like Keith Richards to give away to drug addicts, but it would be quite possible for people to overestimate their habit and get more than they need and then sell it on or give it away. I love that question, actually, because that was one of the reasons that the sort of moral panic and fear that helped sell the shift away from the British system into the system that we have now. And, yeah, it wasn't perfect because you could get that leakage on a small scale. If they've developed a problematic relationship with that drug, very few people will skim off some of it.
18:51You know, I've spoken to people who still remain on the British system today. There's still 100 or so in this country. And they are very precious about their prescription because they don't want to be exploited by organised crime again. And in fact, in Switzerland, where for most of the time since 1994, the prescription has been people allowing them to inject themselves, they've shifted into a more harm reduction approach. And now some people who've been on their prescription for a long time are allowed to take it home. And I was speaking to some police officers last time I did a speaking event in Switzerland.
19:23And they said, oh, we're getting a bit of a leakage problem. you know and it's causing us some concern i says yeah but think of the alternative you know you manage your leakage problem because drugs are dangerous drugs are difficult you have to take the least worst option in terms of what the best way to control the risks yeah
19:40Jenny Kleeman:but you don't know where the drugs are leaking to it could be kids getting hold of them it could be extremely vulnerable people getting hold of them is that a risk you're prepared to take in this country in the uk we've had tens of thousands of children who've been groomed exploited and traumatised by supplying heroin. The reason we have heroin being dealt by children in this country is because the police are so good at catching the dealers. We celebrate this success, but it just makes the business of organised crime much more refined. Part of that refining, part of the tactic from organised crime, is the exploitation of children.
20:17So which is the greater risk?
20:20Jenny Kleeman:The Swiss example is interesting, though. when you drill down on the statistics of it, it shows the number of new users has gone down, but the total number of people using heroin has decreased really a lot more slowly. Are there limitations to how effective an approach like this could be? I think there are limitations to any drug policy because drugs are really a pain in the arse policy-wise. They're difficult. And so there are limitations. But the beauty of once you have regulation, you can tweak those regulations. Whether it's on the softer end, you've got pricing as a regulatory tool, or on the harder end where it's completely medically controlled, you do have different options.
21:03The point is though, Switzerland's consumption has gone down. And once you rescue people from that exploitation, and we have to be clear here, that if you're not taking care of someone medically or with a regulatory model, you are leaving them to the exploitation of organised crime and that suits organized crime very much that's what they want so we shouldn't be doing
21:22Jenny Kleeman:policy that organized crime wants how would that work then i mean what do you mean by a government prescription if i wanted to go and get some heroin how would this work well the system they have in switzerland is is actually quite strict it's more strict than i would personally want because that you have to have failed two forms of treatment in switzerland before you are eligible to go on to dimorphine assisted treatment, heroin prescription. So you have to jump through those hoops. It can take you about 12 months. And you wouldn't want those hoops to be there? No. And the reason for that is because, say there's a young woman in her early 20s.
21:59She presents as a new patient for heroin addiction. She's going into drug treatment services. She's been using heroin problematically for six months. And she's being sexually exploited by organised crime as a result of that relationship. and she wants to escape that. The fastest way you could manage to help her escape that is if she was given the drug that she was using that time instantly. Then you've got her protected, you've got control of the supply, you give the wraparound care, the counselling, whatever else she needs and then if she needs to switch on to some other form of medication then you've already got her in the services.
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22:37Whereas there is a good chance if you were to just give her methadone she would still be open to that exploitation. So these tools are there if we use them wisely and we need to see this way beyond just the patient in front of someone. You have to see it in the context of the power of organised crime in our communities.
22:56Jenny Kleeman:There will be some people listening to this who just think it is morally wrong for the government, particularly through doctors, to enable people to be using harmful drugs. What would you say to that position? Yeah, I'm glad you've asked that question on morality because, you know, I debate this all over the world. And often it just comes down to the moral question. This is immoral, so we must fight as hard as we can against it. But the drug law reform movement is now claiming that moral argument because for 13 years in the UK, we've had record drug deaths every year. and it is immoral not to use the best evidence to save those lives.
23:43Clearly, what greater morality is there than the preservation of life? And we are failing in that preservation of life in the UK from the policies that we are using and there is very clear evidence of better ways of doing it. The countries, I know I reference Switzerland a lot, but any country which takes a more health-based approach, they have less deaths and the evidence is very clear as to why. Harm reduction works, prohibition doesn't.
24:13Jenny Kleeman:It is the case that we've had record numbers of drug deaths over the past 13 years, but the official crime statistics show that the number of young people using drugs that has actually been falling over the past decade or so. So is it completely right to say that prohibition has failed? Well, you can't claim any reduction in any drug use to be the successive prohibition. The drug use amongst the population, including young people, tends to ebb and flow for other reasons, whether it's social reasons. I think probably the use of social media has actually been the thing that's reduced drug use within young people because they have something else to push their dopamine buttons.
24:55but there are still a lot of people using drugs and they could be using them safer if they had better information and they had better guidance but of course it's very hard to educate people properly about something where the rule is just you know you're not allowed to do that
25:14Jenny Kleeman:Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription.
25:42Jenny Kleeman:I hope you're enjoying my conversation with Neil Woods. Don't forget you can subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sound so you always know about future episodes. and make sure you've got push notifications turned on. That way you'll get an alert whenever we publish a new episode so you'll never miss out. Now, back to Neil Woods.
26:04Jenny Kleeman:Let's talk about other drugs then. Let's talk about cannabis. What would your approach to cannabis be? I mean, we have examples now of where it's been done and we can learn from other people's mistakes and I'm very keen to do that. If you look at Canada, in some ways the Canadian legal regulation is quite good, but they made many mistakes. It's too commercial, there's too much marketing. I see this through a public health lens, and many of my drug law reform comrades on perhaps more of the right of the political spectrum see the value in a commercial version of a cannabis market. but you know we should learn the lesson from alcohol advertising and the history of uh tobacco advertising we shouldn't allow branding we just need a public health approach but then where would you buy it from i mean in practical terms would there be age limits would they be limits on potency on the amount that you can buy is it a question of going into a news agent and buying it i mean how in practical terms i mean we know what you don't want what do you want well i would go for multiple methods of sales so there's cannabis social clubs where people can go it's like a bit like a pub it's very good for harm reduction because it's a sort of social setting the cannabis social clubs in malta are a really good example of that the way that they've regulated but i would also go for shops which are i would prefer government monopoly uh government completely controlling it so you would have these these outlets but the important thing is you know if if drug policy should be about nothing else it should be about the protection of our young And right now, our young people can get hold of cannabis, MDMA and cocaine much easier than they can alcohol and tobacco.
27:46Seriously, a lot easier. Because dealers don't ask for ID. Once you've taken control of the cannabis market, you can check ID. So you would check, there would be an age limit. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And there is an interesting debate about what age that should be for young people.
28:03Jenny Kleeman:If there was an age limit, though, wouldn't there still be a black market? Because if, as you say, younger teenagers or kids are trying to buy cannabis, wouldn't they continue to do so? Wouldn't there still be a black market for them? But it becomes harder because you have to have your ID. Now, in Canada, one of the mistakes they made is the price of cannabis was twice as much as the illicit market, which was a foolish policy decision because it took them a lot longer to take control. Cannabis doesn't come without harms. I've written about people, young people who've developed psychosis that they're living with for years as a consequence of having had bad experience with cannabis.
28:44Jenny Kleeman:How could we make sure that we were protecting people's mental health if the government was supplying cannabis to people? Yeah, absolutely. It has potential harms. All drugs have some potential harms. But those harms that you're referring to and those young people, that harm has come to them under prohibition. the average strength in terms of the the amount of thc in cannabis has grown there's some fascinating data from greater manchester police which shows the increase per seizures over 15 years it's a frightening increase so cannabis has become more dangerous as a result of prohibition but that is what happens with all drugs it's called the iron law of prohibition that once you make something prohibited the drug becomes stronger and more dangerous because it's much more cost effective to smuggle something which is very high strength.
29:32It's like with alcohol prohibition in the United States, within a few weeks no one could get beer anymore, they could only get spirits because who's going to smuggle beer? I'm not saying necessarily that we should completely prohibit high strength THC cannabis, but there is also surveys which show that the majority of cannabis consumers prefer a mild product. It's like the majority of alcohol consumers prefer a mild product. Most people drink a pint of beer or cider than they do a double whiskey. But you can also use a public health approach to pricing so the high strength products can be more expensive as well.
30:10I mean there's an interesting discussion here because for many people who use cannabis medicinally, particularly for things like MS, it's the very very high strength THC which is important to them but they are a minority.
30:23Jenny Kleeman:So you wouldn't even prohibit those higher strength there were certain conditions where you would you would be happy for the government to be supplying i think we should strength we should follow the best scientific evidence and we should consider the regulatory mechanisms to make the market as safe as possible that puts big responsibility on the people who are selling it though and the idea of cannabis clubs if they're selling this very strong stuff that could give people psychosis that's a that's a big ask of people running those clubs well there are ways of mitigating the psychosis but by balancing with the CBD in the product.
30:54But you need to put this into context. There is a psychosis risk with alcohol, but we don't talk about that. But it's not as much as with cannabis. No, but we can reduce those risks by taking control. Regulatory control reduces the risks.
31:09Jenny Kleeman:What about MDMA or cocaine? How would it work? Well, for drugs like MDMA, you need a licensed pharmacy where people can buy them in a regulated dose, perhaps a packet of MDMA tablets, there would be a limit in the amount of tablets. One regulatory suggestion is that each tablet would be 40 milligrams. Two of those would be quite a standard adult dose, perhaps. Some people would prefer three. The thing is about MDMA is when you look at the deaths that have happened, they have almost entirely been as a result of the lack of regulation. So they've been tablets which are four times too strong, or they've had PMA, much more dangerous drugs in them, or they've been adulterated with cathinones or whatever the dangerous substances they've been adulterated with.
31:58So for a drug which has a pretty good safety profile, once it's pure in its pure form, regulation makes it safer. And if you buy it from a licensed pharmacy, you can get the correct advice and you have a limit of how many you can buy at that time. Same for the psychedelics.
32:14Jenny Kleeman:What's to stop people stockpiling it and taking huge amounts? in a way that would really cause damage to their health, no matter how pure it is. Well, I don't think there is a great deal you can do about that. Just a risk you're prepared to take, that this would be a byproduct of the system. This would be safer than prohibition. People can stockpile drugs now, but they are less likely to if you've got a regulated market where you've got a limit as to how many you can buy in one go. So, yeah, I mean, there are going to be risks because drugs are risky things. there's also the question of normalizing what can be very dangerous drugs because cocaine even in a pure form even when it's not adulterated has huge risks to health cardiovascular health in particular do you worry that we would be normalizing quite dangerous activity by legalizing a drug like cocaine cocaine is normalized now it's the second most illicit drug used in this country the estimates are extraordinary in fact there's a the most recent sewage tests of various cities in the uk suggest that even our estimates of the amount of cocaine use could be too low cocaine is everywhere and it concerns me a great deal because especially in the uk and the rest of northern europe the consumption of cocaine is completely linked to the consumption of alcohol which makes it substantially more dangerous because if you mix cocaine and alcohol the liver makes cocoa ethylene a third drug which is cardiovascularly more dangerous it's a much more dangerous drug and we are not getting the harm reduction advice out there we are not getting the message out there that this is dangerous and this is going to cause long-term public health problems and and cost to the national health service as well can't you get the harm reduction message out there without making cocaine legally available i mean couldn't there be public health campaigns about the dangers of mixing cocaine and alcohol?
34:13You could, but it'd be much more effective if you've got regulatory control over those products. You can also stop the acceleration that organised crime is managing to do in terms of the growth of the cocaine market. We need to get a grip of this. And like I've just said, that there is evidence that people prefer a less strong product of any drug. If you actually take control of the cocaine market, you can have much milder products you can have much milder ways of using this drug which will be enough for most people you know because you've got prohibition of this drug you've only got the strongest forms of it and it's got stronger and stronger now cocaine has got so strong most of the time even a single one gram deal is is above 75 and quite often it's 100 at the moment the data
35:03Jenny Kleeman:you drew on to do with levels of cocaine in sewage, they demonstrate that there is a higher level of cocaine, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a greater trend, a greater number of people taking cocaine. It could be that people are just taking higher quantities. And the British Crime Survey, looking at the use of all class A drugs, it actually suggests that the trend is pretty stable of the number of people taking class A drugs. It depends what statistics you look at. And I would suggest that the methodology, if you look at it, for the analysis, is more accurate testing sewage than it is for the estimates for the crime survey.
35:41Because the failures of crime survey is you're relying on people to admit to what they're doing. But to answer your point, and it's a good point, that it could be the numbers of people using cocaine more problematically. And of course, that is a feature of prohibition, where people are more likely to use drugs problematically. It's one of the causes, one of the things that prohibition causes. You know, people talk about the most important figure being the numbers of people using drugs. But the numbers of people using drugs aren't necessarily the number we should be concerned about. The number we should be worried about is the number of people using drugs problematically.
36:16And of course, if you have different options for our society, for example, MDMA, you know, we're sold this idea that MDMA is so dangerous. And tragically, people have died like Leah Betts, and that's awful. but Leah Betts died from poor advice drinking too much water you know from the wrong harm reduction advice and most of the deaths have been because it's not regulated a very close friend of mine Anne-Marie Coburn she lost her 15 year old daughter to an accidental overdose of MDMA she took enough for several people because it wasn't a regulated dose so once you get a regulatory control of MDMA, the deaths would be tiny.
36:58Jenny Kleeman:You talk about MDMA and the risks associated with adulterated supply or people drinking too much water or alcohol alongside, but there are other risks too. A 2006 article in the British Journal of Anesthesia said that the immediate effects of ecstasy vary from almost universal minor symptoms to those that are rare but potentially life-threatening. And among severe effects, one of them is possible sudden death. So for some people taking them, even in a pure form, even not in huge quantities, it's extremely dangerous. Yes, that's right. But it's a tiny risk compared to the risks that are happening now.
37:38So with many things about drug policy, it's taking the least worst option. Will there still be deaths? Yes, because drugs are dangerous. There will still be alcohol deaths. We could cut our alcohol deaths in half, but it's reluctant to use best evidence is a moral failure, especially when the opposition say that it's a moral judgment.
38:01Jenny Kleeman:I should say that we have a statement from the Home Office. A government spokesperson said, there are no plans to change UK drug laws or legalised controlled drugs. We remain on high alert to emerging drug threats, working closely with health services and policing partners to stay ahead of criminals, prevent drug use in children and young people and educate them on the risks. We're also tackling the root of the problem by stopping drugs entering the UK in the first place. A record number of illegal drugs were seized by police and border force in the year ending March 2025 with 150 tonnes with a street value of£2.6 billion stopped entering our streets.
38:40I'm so glad you read that part of the quote because the journalistic presentation of this which of course is fed from government and police is we have a record seizure of drugs we have record arrests but the most regular headline is we have this record seizure and there's always either Royal Navy or Customs have had a record seizure it's always the biggest seizure since the last one and until the next one but this isn't evidence of success it's just further evidence of failure because a large seizure is only evidence of the size of the growing market and the evidence internationally is clear like i've said that the markets have grown greater than the size of populations these markets are growing larger seizures are merely evidence of that and organized crime have become so efficient, so effective, that these are just normal business losses.
39:37Jenny Kleeman:But when we're talking about organised crime and criminal gangs, they're not going to go away if we go for the approach that you're advocating. They will still be there in the background with cheaper prices, selling to people who wouldn't qualify because they're not the right age, stronger strains. They would still be there, wouldn't they? the national crime agency produced a brilliant document called the strategic assessment into organized crime it's a really great document sometimes it's quite surprising the detail that they'll publish in that quite often in that document they've made the point that the profits from the illicit drug markets are routinely reinvested into other forms of organized criminality another way of phrasing that is that the the value in the illicit drug market is like the investment bank.
40:25It's what makes other forms of criminality possible. It's the investment bank for people trafficking. It's the investment bank for counterfeiting. So if you take the illicit drug markets away from organised crime, or as much of a percentage of them as you can through regulation, you cripple organised crime twice.
40:46Jenny Kleeman:Shouldn't we, instead of looking at countries where they have legalised or decriminalised drugs, shouldn't we be looking at countries like Japan that have very low levels of drug taking and see why that's worked there? I mean, shouldn't we be looking at the reasons why people want to take drugs in the first place and counteracting that? Absolutely. We should look at the examples of everywhere. And in fact, that's what the government did. So there's a report published in 2014. It's called the Comparators Report, which did just that. It looked at the various models of different countries all around the world.
41:19And Japan was actually highlighted as an outlier, which didn't seem to quite have the same level of problems that most prohibition regimes do. However, Japan has a significantly higher amphetamine problem, methamphetamine problem, than we do in the UK. They don't have the same cannabis problem, but they still have problems with prohibition and organised crime. So yeah, we should look at these things. But in that comparators report, the best outcomes were all of the countries that had the most health-based approach.
41:54Jenny Kleeman:There are some practical issues with all of this, though, aren't there? Where are you going to get these legal drugs from? I mean, if we're talking about cocaine, is the government going to be doing business with cartels? How would it work? Well, if we wanted to, we could manufacture cocaine. We could do a lab version of it. But ideally, we have a responsibility in the Northern Hemisphere to the harm that prohibition has caused in the South, the global South, especially. Ideally, we should have an international regulatory system where those countries in Latin America can take control of their own resources and we could trade with them.
42:35Another reason why that is absolutely crucial is that the international regime of drug prohibition that we have, I know that we probably don't have time to go into this in depth, But the international regime of prohibition is also a significant barrier to climate action. You've got Albanian organised crime buying up wood trading companies in Ecuador to better launder drug money through deforestation. So this is urgent that we try and make this an international movement and an international decision.
43:06Jenny Kleeman:But it's going to take decades to have sort of international agreement on all of this. And meanwhile, these cartels are not going to want it to happen. And we know the misery these cartels will cause targeting people who are threatening their power, including people like you, who might be advocating, you know, taking away the source of their millions. It would be an incredibly difficult process, wouldn't it? I'm glad you've acknowledged that, that the cartels don't want this change. And the closer we get to change, the closer we get to taking control and having regulatory mechanisms, the pushback from the cartels will be more severe.
43:46so you know if there becomes strong advocates you know higher profile and louder and more persuasive than I am you know those people are going to be targets but that's not a reason to not try.
44:02Jenny Kleeman:But won't criminal gangs cartels be constantly synthesizing new drugs we know that they're developing new drugs all the time and as soon as there are legal routes for the drugs that they produce, aren't they constantly going to be inventing to keep themselves in business? The drive to create new drugs is a feature of prohibition, not legal regulation. The constant drive to produce drugs which beat the laws, beat the treaties, or are a cheaper high, or a more efficient way of selling a product, that's been generated by the market drive of prohibition, not regulation as soon as you have legally regulated mdma that people can buy that's not adulterated with anything that's produced in a lab less of a hangover because less impurities that will kill off so much how can you know this though i mean how much of that is your hunch or the kind of the logical conclusion to your thinking and how much of it is actually based in evidence well a lot of it is hunch but i speak i mean i speak to people involved in drug policy all of the world and there is evidence that people prefer a purer product and a safer product but you know even just look at the logic of it why would someone go to a backstreet dealer for for an mdma tablet which might be caught with pma when you can buy one that's pure and made in a lab it defies logic who buys backstreet whiskey now you know in in places where there's been prohibited alcohol people don't they can get it licensed and it's safe it hasn't got methylated spirits in it that might make them blind.
45:37Jenny Kleeman:After doing this campaigning for years, you have only recently been open about your own use of illegal drugs. Why did it take you so long? It took me so long because I came out of the police to become active. I was having a mental health crisis I had to deal with. And when I went public, I was acutely aware of the fact that I needed to stay credible and that by admitting the drug use that I had I could be dismissed as just or you just want to make drug legal drugs legal for yourself which wasn't the case because I decided I realized that the work I was doing working undercover was only causing harm to society and individuals long before I'd actually self-medicated to try and deal with my mental health.
46:26But earlier this year, how many people say this? They had a revelation whilst at a retreat. But, you know, it's a trope now, isn't it? But I did. One of the revelations I had was that I now have a duty to be honest about my own drug use because the drugs I've used have made me well. Now, I know.
46:48Jenny Kleeman:How can you know that they've made you well, Neil? That's a huge claim. I know. It's the ultimate subjective comment, isn't it? But thankfully, the evidence backs me up. So I am diagnosed with complex PTSD and moral injury. I developed those mental illnesses as a result of my police work working undercover. What is moral injury? moral injury so it manifests with me for me as a profound sense of guilt and guilt and worthlessness because i knew i was causing harm to vulnerable people i realized that when i got to know them i weaponized empathy in order to better manipulate them causing harm to those people was contrary to my ethical and moral centre, contrary to who I am.
47:44And yet I still continue to do so for the sake of the cause, because I believed at the time that it was going to be beneficial. Eventually I realised I was causing harm. Now, and even though I can rationalise it, it's what I believed to be right at the time, I'm still injured because there's no harsher judge of oneself than oneself.
48:05Jenny Kleeman:So you took psychedelic drugs and you're saying that they helped you? Well I've had suicidal ideation such as the extent of my emotional pain. Now I've been on sertraline, metazapine, various benzodiazepines, I've had CBT, all sorts of different therapies, I've seen three psychiatrists, multiple psychiatric nurses. None of it really helped apart from the occasional conversation with a psychiatric nurse one dose and i learned so much about my own condition and my own brain in that one experience more than anything i'd done more than any conversation i'd had and i instantly felt better and i felt better for months um now the evidence supports this?
48:57Jenny Kleeman:You say the evidence supports this, but this is still an early field, an emerging field. There's a lot of trials going on. I've been having a look at the kind of official responses in the UK and the US. The impartial parliamentary office of science and technology says to understand the safety and efficacy more accurately, psychedelics need to be investigated with larger and longer clinical trials. John Hopkins Centre for Psychedelics and Consciousness basically says the same it's too early to know for sure about psychedelics so the evidence isn't quite there yet and it's quite a big thing to be advocating this in such a big way particularly when they are illegal at the moment and you know you don't want people self-medicating do you well i'm not advocating for it but i but i have to be honest about what what has happened for me um and i've had years of gradually healing myself by the use of psychedelics and i'm i mean again And, you know, it's subjective.
49:48It's just me, but it has worked for me.
49:50Jenny Kleeman:But you of all people know about the dangers of the pipeline when you're taking illegal drugs. Did you not wrestle with that when you were talking about drugs for your own use? I mean, yes, anyone involved in it is a criminal. But are they doing something which is ethically wrong? I don't necessarily believe that. the psychedelic market tends to be much nicer and less risky than than some of the other drugs uh it's just that there's not such the size of the market people who do it traditionally tend to be the sort of um the intellectual types or the people like to party in a certain way um you know it's a different group of people there's a great risk when talking about psychedelics that to let some kind of exceptionalism creep in because I believe it's my right to try and heal myself with psychedelics, but I wouldn't put that right above anybody's right to self-medicate with their drug of choice, whatever that might be.
50:52And also people who are self-medicating for childhood trauma with heroin, they do not deserve to be criminalised any more than I deserve to be criminalised for the use of psychedelics. So, you know, be careful not to adopt the psychedelic exceptionalism which seems to be creeping in at the moment.
51:12Jenny Kleeman:If we were to do this, to adopt the measures that you suggest and find out that they didn't work, that drug deaths didn't go down, drug harms weren't reduced, could we go back? Isn't it a big risk to take to try these measures? I would say it's a big risk to leave it too long. I think that legal regulation will come eventually as the only last ditch option when we realise that having children dealing heroin and crack cocaine is not sustainable and we must do something different to stop it. You know, eventually it's inevitable that risk is taking too long because organised crime is becoming more and more embedded.
51:53And once we have regulatory control of these substances, we can tweak that regulatory control. We can work out how better to control these substances. And for some substances, that will mean that we will drastically reduce, over time, drastically reduce the consumption of them like heroin. Heroin consumption will go down. We know that from Switzerland and we know it from the Netherlands. For some drugs, consumption might go up. Consumption of MDMA might go up. But do I care if someone wants to take an ecstasy pill and dance in a field for a few hours? Do I really care about that? I care about whether they survive it and whether they stay safe.
52:33Jenny Kleeman:Can we trust that people will take drugs responsibly? Can we trust that they will take drugs and not drive, for example, or take drugs and not be looking after kids? How can we know? Remember, there are people using illicit drugs now and driving. Yes. And that will still be illegal once those drugs are legally controlled. But if you're making it much easier to get hold of intoxicating substances, and there's a much greater variety of things you can take to become intoxicated. But we won't be making it easier to get hold of. Well, if you're making it legal and you're talking about cannabis cafes or places like that, it will be less complicated to go and less controversial, certainly, and more normalised to be taking these drugs.
53:24Jenny Kleeman:Wouldn't there be a greater risk of not taking them in a responsible way? No, I mean, it's easy now. It's incredibly easy for people to get the drugs that they want now. And in fact, with the merging of the drug markets, you can have young people who might start buying cannabis from a dealer. Then it's the same dealer for cocaine. And that's how they get introduced to these things. So by separating the markets and taking regulatory control, you know who's buying it, you need to show ID for the appropriate age, it's taking control of it. You also then start to control the narrative, because at the moment a lot of people get advice about how much to take and when from a dealer.
54:06regulatory control will make these things safer and it allows for more detailed and evidence-based public health campaigns and the right information that people need.
54:19Jenny Kleeman:Morally and culturally Neil do you think the UK really is the country to do this because we're still having debates about assisted dying that lots of other countries have have made legal a long time ago. Are we too conservative when it comes to things like drugs to actually be at the forefront of this? I'm not sure. I mean, the debate is shifting. And I say it's shifted because the argument that I'm having, the debate I'm having around the world is not should we or shouldn't we? It's how we should do it. Should we do it through the lens of this political philosophy or another. So we are getting there in terms of the debate and it could shift quickly.
55:02It could. There has to be a tipping point where people realise the acute harms we are doing to society. Maybe we need a shift in our style of democracy here. I don't know, to something perhaps a bit more Swiss. Maybe it's the democratic method that's the key. So maybe that should be the conversation. But, you know, I think we could in this country renew our traditional commitment to evidence, to pragmatic thinking, and we could get that swing here.
55:33Jenny Kleeman:Neil Woods, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.
55:43Jenny Kleeman:It was a real privilege to get to talk in such depth with someone who's done such a 180 in their lives to go from pursuing drug dealers to trying to make the business of selling drugs legal and regulated by the government. He's clearly so passionate about this. It's something that Neil really deeply believes, but it's such a complex issue. And when he spells out all the different ways that he would be approaching things for all the different drugs, you realise how thorny it is. The issue of supply is still a very sticky one for me. Are we really going to be able to get ethical sources of all of these drugs?
56:28Jenny Kleeman:Is there no way that the cartels would be involved? And also to hear Neil concede that some children will still take drugs and that some people will still die from reactions to drugs. And we're just going to have to factor this in as the lesser of two evils, that this approach is better compared to children using drugs under prohibition or people dying under prohibition. That was a really harsh thing to hear. Neil might think that what he's proposing is common sense, but hearing it expressed in that way, it sounded pretty radical to me. That's it for this episode. A quick note before we go that details of organisations offering information and support about drug addiction and suicide are available at bbc.co.uk slash actionline.
57:18Jenny Kleeman:To make sure you don't miss future conversations, you can subscribe to Radical on BBC Sounds. We'll be back on Monday with the Radical questions that you put to Neil Woods, so look out for that too. That's it from me, but there'll be another episode of Radical coming very soon. Goodbye. I'm Jenny Kleeman, And for the new series of The Gift from BBC Radio 4, I'm back with six more remarkable tales of truths that unravel when people take at-home DNA tests. Things just swirling around my head going, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, am I really the product of this? We all find ourselves really fascinating, don't we?
57:58Jenny Kleeman:Oh, absolutely. Except that I really am. In the end, the truth will come out. And DNA helps the truth to come out. Right, yeah. Listen to the new series of The Gift, now on BBC Sounds.
58:38Thank you.
From the publisher
As an undercover police officer Neil Woods' job was to infiltrate drug gangs and put their leaders behind bars, but he says his work gradually convinced him that he was doing more harm than good. Since leaving the force he has become one of the UK's foremost campaigners for drug policy reform.
Neil tells this week's host, Jenny Kleeman, why he believes the war on drugs has failed, and sets out his alternative vision for legalising and regulating the use of cannabis, cocaine, heroin and other products. He thinks drugs on prescription or sold with age and dose restrictions, as well as health advice, would be the best way to keep users safe and wrest control of the market away from organised crime.
But, of course, Neil has his opponents. We ask whether the war on drugs really is failing, if legalisation would really eradicate crime and the black market, and whether legalisation might actually increase drug use and deaths.
- WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 - Email: radical@bbc.co.uk
Episodes of Radical are released every Thursday and Monday.
Series Producer: Simon Tulett Producer: Nathan Gower Technical Producer: Mike Regaard Senior News Editor: Sam Bonham
