Paul Lashmar and Rosie Cowan (Extracted from "Heroin influx feared as drug squads reform", The Guardian, 14 November 2005)

"Investigations into drug trafficking are being drastically scaled back in the run-up to the launch of a crime fighting agency next April, according to senior Customs sources. They claim that Customs' six heroin-targeting squads -- which have 18 members each -- are winding down operations to pave the way for the FBI-style Serious and Organised Crime Agency, which will tackle drug and people trafficking."

[Ed: The new, supposedly more effective strategy against hard drugs will be as inept as the present one. For one simple economic reason. The street value of hard drugs entering the UK is estimated at £4 billion a year, yet it creates an estimated £24 billion a year in jobs and associated costs in customs, police, health and social services. By outlawing cocaine and heroin (causing trivial numbers of premature deaths compared with those caused by alcohol), a more effective job-creation policy has never yet been devised in the whole history of civilisation.]