Drug policies.

Undercover cops blow whistle on drug policies. :

"'And next thing it's creeping into your personal life. One day you think you're fine, and the next day you've cut off all your friends, your associates, all your family and you spend all your time with crooks - even when you're not working.'"

I was listening to these two former undercover police officers being interviewed this morning on the radio. My first reaction was why is this on the radio when we are doing all this drug busting all over the place? The more I listened , the more I felt compassion for undercover agents. This wasn't my version of how it should be; this was how it truly was for undercover agents. They didn't sound angry or resentful but when they had sacrified so much in a personal way and had contributed to some very successful inroads into breaking down criminal activity, but had found themselves, in the end, in deep personal trouble. I could understand they would want some help , a thank you and some of the accolades. Some consideration in all of this. It made me realise we have people who have paid a very high personal price to help solve issues of concern to the general public. It is hugely complex in terms of behaviour and risk taking and how you survive. It would take a team of behavioural experts and strategists to work out how to deal with this and how to prepare people for such dangerous tasks. The questions are then..have we a better way of doing this? Some people say if you legalise all drugs you take all this negative stuff out of it because there is no money involved and no power. Phillip Adams in the Australian last week suggested our cigarette approach ...and boy ,have we made people give up smoking without using the police or any jail terms. It has been an amazing thing to witness the power of a community.