EP 121 The Pretender: A Cops Descent into the Criminal Underworld. How One Under Cover Police Officer Risked Everything

Podcast Talking Points – Neil Woods Episode

• A raw look inside the life of an undercover cop: Neil Woods recounts his years infiltrating dangerous drug gangs across the UK, living double lives and navigating high-stakes deception.
• The emotional and psychological toll of undercover work: Neil opens up about the trauma, fear, and moral conflict that came with being deep undercover — and the long-term effects on his mental health.
• The failure of the war on drugs: Drawing from firsthand experience, Neil dismantles the narrative of drug enforcement success and exposes how these tactics often fuel organized crime rather than dismantle it.
• From enforcement to activism: Once part of the machine, Neil now fights against it. He shares how his lived experience turned him into a passionate advocate for drug policy reform and a member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Action Partnership).
• The human cost of policing drug crime: Real stories of those caught in the crossfire — from gang members to vulnerable individuals — and how current laws perpetuate cycles of violence and addiction.
• Insight into criminal psychology and gang dynamics: What really goes on inside these criminal networks? Neil shares chilling yet insightful perspectives on manipulation, power, and survival.
• Whistleblowing and the courage to speak out: Neil reveals the institutional resistance to change and the risks he’s taken by speaking the truth about systemic failures within UK policing.

BIO

A former Derbyshire police officer, Neil worked undercover for the East Midlands Special Operations Unit through the nineties and noughties. He resigned as a Detective Sergeant in 2011. 

The author of a bestselling memoir Good Cop Bad War, and the drug policy history book Drug Wars with JS Rafaeli, he’s now a leading figure in the international drug law reform movement. He has written for multiple publications such as The Guardian and the Independent, and appeared in news features and documentaries in many nations. Neil is a board member of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership in the USA and Europe. He is a founding member of the Coalition on Drug Policy Reform & Environmental Justice and a director of OEV Partners

https://lawenforcementactionpartnership.org

https://www.reformrestorerecover.org

https://www.oevpartners.com

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:01

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Yoyo: 0:36

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome, welcome to the award winning Security Circle podcast. That's never going to get tired. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education, information and certification for all levels of security personnel and to make a positive difference where we can to our members mental health and well being. Our listeners, our global, you are the decision makers of today and tomorrow. And I want to thank you personally, wherever you are for being a part of our security circle journey. If you'd have the podcast, we are on all podcast platforms and don't forget to subscribe or even better, just like comment and share the LinkedIn post. Thank you for your company today, whatever you're doing, wherever you are. With me today, I have Neil Woods. He's a former police officer with Derbyshire Constabulary, and he's now a board member at Law Enforcement Action Partnership. Abbreviated to LEAP. He is a founding member of International Coalition on Drug Policy Reform and Environmental Justice. Wow. Let's find out a little bit more about this. Neil, welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. How are you doing?

Neil: 1:52

I'm doing okay. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Yoyo: 1:56

Listen, you were too excited, too excited. I was too excited when I saw your LinkedIn profile because you're involved in some very, very interesting things, which I'd like to go in and talk about. But look, let's talk about your journey. Started off, I guess, you know, quite idealistic, like mine, a little naive when I joined, hoping to make a better world, one criminal at a time. What was your journey through your police career like?

Neil: 2:22

Lots of ups and downs. I mean, when I started in the police, I was I was a terrible uniformed cop, to be honest, I only realized I was too young to go into the police when I found myself as a 19 year old in uniform, not really having a clue what was going on. So I was a slow starter, I would say, compared with my peers that I joined with. I didn't adapt very quickly. So, in fact, my first two years was just, you know, Um, I only stayed in to at the time thinking I'll get past my probation to prove I can do it to myself, you know, just survive it. it got easier, but that was my first two years, so it wasn't the most auspicious start. But then, I got four years service in and I got an attachment to the drug squad. And so this was 1993 and maybe many listeners from the UK will remember at that time there was a big moral panic, about drugs. There's always a moral panic about drugs, isn't there? It goes around the cycles in the media, there's this new drug or there's, You know, the new terror for our young people, but at the time, it was about crack cocaine coming across the Atlantic and the tabloid newspapers had talked about how crack cocaine had damaged America for years before we actually had any. So, you know, everyone was whipped up into a frenzy and that's why suddenly there was a big investment in drugs, policing, and that meant little rookies like me could get an attachment. to the drug squad.

Yoyo: 3:46

I have to ask you, Neil, was that like the coolest attachment at the time? Was it considered a really cool thing to do?

Neil: 3:53

It was because the drug squad were these mysterious people who wore, who had long hair and wore Unusual clothes and drove the best cars and the only people who got overtime at the time as well. So yeah, it was fantastic. It was great. And they were all such cool and fascinating people. Obviously I learned very rapidly from their point of view. They thought it was a pain in the ass. I was there. They didn't want any rookies joining in who didn't understand how to do surveillance and. Got under their feet, but it was pushed upon them., it wasn't a decision that they made, but quite quickly, one of them looked to me and said, well, do you fancy having to go up buying some crack? And I thought, well, that's not the question I was expecting really. And in no time at all, there was this hastily put together ops point, but of a camera and 20 pounds was pushing into my hand and I was sent to knock on this door and try and see if I could buy some crack cocaine. And that was the point really that changed the rest of my life, I suppose, which has brought me to this point.

Yoyo: 4:51

So now I'm starting to join the dots, Neil, that your young age was actually a huge asset to this department because maybe you just looked like a young person that would be more inclined to dibble dabble in the older bit of crack cocaine.

Neil: 5:06

It's got to make it easier, right? Especially to start with. I knocked on this door, this guy looked at me and said, who are you? Are you a student? I hate the students. And I thought, well, I don't know who I am. I've got no idea. Um, because I hadn't really thought about a cover story. They just put this twenty pound in my hand and said, go and knock on that door. So I said, you know, I thought to myself, well, that'll do. Yeah, I'm a student and he laughed at me and said, I mean, didn't you just hear me? I just said I hate students, but he just found it funny and, um, you know, he let me choose my little paper twist out of his hand and as I was walking away, he said, you take care now. Don't get arrested, which I thought was quite considerate. And of course, that's one of the most important points I could really make today is that that first time it was relatively easy because he wasn't expecting a cop to be on his front doorstep, however, young and student like, because that tactic wasn't really common. It was just beginning in the UK that the sort of the level to the lower form of. Of undercover work was just starting. So he didn't expect it, but of course he went to prison, told everybody in prison and suddenly everyone knew there was a new tactic. So the work that I was doing and various drug squads got very excited about this new tactic. The work I was doing, suddenly I was doing it for a few days, then a few weeks. And in no time at all, I was on loan to all sorts of different drug squads, doing it for no less than about six or seven months because it got instantly more difficult.

Yoyo: 6:38

How good were the police then at being agile in terms of changing the tactics to make sure that, you know, these acquisitions were successful?

Neil: 6:49

Oh yeah, but I mean, they were great. I mean, one thing about the drug squad then is that it was populated by detectives who wanted to be there, and they worked hard to get there, and they tended to be really sharp thinkers, they were really, they worked extra long hours, worked extra hard, put a huge amount of energy into it, and adapting was part of it. But the trouble is, you adapt as police, but organised crime also adapt. when you're talking about the drug markets, then in terms of financial value, as much as anything else, there's more resources on the other side. So organized crime constant, constantly adapt. and now I've learned that actually what drugs policing does is it sharpens the sword of organized crime, you know, in a market which doesn't reduce in size. We are constantly refining the way that market works, you know, however good you are, however good the drug squad is, however dedicated and hardworking and clever you are, you know, the reality of the market is we're not reducing the size of it, only changing the shape of it.

Yoyo: 7:52

That's, I think a lot of people will find that very profound, that's why you're here, Neil, for the profoundness you're going to offer in this conversation. So you've gone from being a simple test purchaser, it evolves, doesn't it, into far, far bigger projects. Are you enjoying it at this stage and was there a point where you're thinking, okay, I'm kind of in deep now? Did you see the way back or were you happy where you were?

Neil: 8:19

Well, I did it for a long time. and I was quite successful, which I suppose made me the slight victim of my success, because for some jobs I was brought in as a sort of troubleshooter. And that was just practice and experience and, you know, having done it for longer than most people. But to answer your question early on, I loved it. I, it was fantastic. It was exciting. It made me feel valued. Uh, and you know,, the first time I thought I was going to die, in fact, the first two times I thought I was going to die was on the same day within a few minutes of each other in, Stoke on Trent near, near the city, near to where I live now, actually, in the Staffordshire Moorlands. And I'd been buying heroin off this dealer for quite a few weeks and I thought he was happy with me. Knocked on the door and he answered the door with this and put a samurai sword to my throat and his face was blood red. He was screaming at me. He said, you drug squad. said, you're fucking drug squad. I know you are. You fucking, you're dead. He was spitting at me. He was blood. He was so blood red and angry. And I could feel the steel against my throat. And I really thought this was it. And then suddenly this woman looked from behind him and started laughing. And then he started laughing. And she said, I thought he was going to say he was then. And they were just winding me up. Maybe he just wanted to try out his new sword, I'm not sure. Or maybe he just wanted to remind me he was boss. It's quite common with drug dealers. And so, still shaken, I had to negotiate exactly what I wanted. Anyway, I walked away with four wraps of heroin, which I was carefully putting into a cigarette packet back in the days when I used to smoke. I looked up, and there was a knife pointing towards my stomach. Someone was trying to rob me for the heroin that I'd just bought from the dealer's house that everyone knows is a dealer. So talk about out of the frying pan. Anyway, I looked at this guy and thought, there's no way I'm giving this up after what I've just been through. So I sort of started running backwards away from him. And as he's sort of trying to follow me, he says, No, hang on. Just, no, just come here a minute. I thought, no, no, I'm not going to come here a minute. You're trying to rob me at life point. So I managed to run behind a car. And you know, that game you'd used to play with friends as a kid, where you'd run like one side or other of a car, It was a bit like that, really quite farcical for a little while until I thought, well, I can just run in the other direction. So, and so I did. So. You know, those were the first two moments, but when I went back to the debrief and I spoke to everyone and everyone was sort of, you know, as a young man, it really boosted my ego in the way that everyone was like, Oh, wow. You, you don't like, you're not bothered at all. And you just had this happen. And I thought, okay, you know, a young man learning about myself thinking. Okay, so I'm a one of those kind of people then that can handle this stuff. Oh, great. That really boosts my ego. So as a young man, it really boosted my sense of self and, you know, I found a place among my peers. And with the fact that I've been such a terrible uniformed cop, suddenly I was enjoying being a bit better at stuff, you know? And also, I really enjoyed the process of constantly developing, constantly reviewing and constantly learning what I was, what I was doing wrong. And, and also I found that I was somebody that when I was in danger, I felt that I could think clearly. And I actually had a sensation that time was slowing down, which again I think was an advantage in those kind of situations that I got in. Some people are like that, some people are not. Is it genetic? Is it part of what I suspect is neurodiversity that I've got? I don't know. but it was an advantage. So for the first many years, I was very, very invested in catching the bad guy at the end of the job, as you said, but also in this sort of personal development and I even enjoyed the sort of intellectual challenge of lying and maintaining a lie amongst a group of people.

Yoyo: 12:18

So you, you managed to get some good cover stories then eventually, it doesn't sound like you've had a lot of training to do that, but you as a natural adapter to environments certainly seem to find your niche. So how long did you work undercover in the end?

Neil: 12:38

Well, it was just over the space of just less than 14 years. Um, that wasn't all of the time. It tended to be for about seven months and then maybe a year off and then another seven months. But that was between 93 and 2007. So I did quite a lot of operations. And then sometimes in between the lengthy ones, I would do what was called a walk on part, where I would be a sort of bit character in someone else's work. Or I would come in and sort of, I suppose, consult on it and advise as well. But after four years, no, there hadn't been any training, but after four years, I helped devise some of the training for the East Midlands and then to also took part in a lot of the training of other cops

Yoyo: 13:22

You must look back now and think, crikey, you know, I do. I also look back and think the things we did and, we're, I think the police are a lot better at, you know, checking and sense checking health and safety is a lot more figurative in a lot of things that police officers do now. I want to ask you, because I think there will be a lot of people. Because I know many of the listeners and I know that they would be wanting to find out what this kind of heroin purchasing culture is like, the drug dealer, take us through, what shocked you the most, I guess, really, in terms of how the little people were involved in the bigger, drugs operation scheme. What did you learn?

Neil: 14:05

Yeah, so one of the main tactics that I used is I would go into any area, like a city centre area, and I would look for the most vulnerable person, the most vulnerable, problematic heroin user. And the reason I would look for the most vulnerable one is that the vulnerable people are easier to manipulate. They're easier to get, but I'll get them to do what I want. And if that sounds ruthless, well Yeah, of course, it's ruthless. That's the nature of the work. And in fact, to a wider degree, it's the nature of drugs policing overall. The idea that we can, use a vulnerable person, get information from them to go up the chain and catch somebody else. It's all quite ruthless. But What I learned is, I mean, in order to survive in that group and to fit in with those people, I had to appear like them. I had to understand their motivations. I had to empathize with them and learn from what made them tick. And what I learned from almost every single vulnerable person, who were quite often user dealers as well, the real foot soldiers in organized crime, if you, if it's an unfortunate term, but that's the way they're seen, all of them. Had childhood trauma every single one of them, you know, there was a young woman who said yeah I can give up heroin and I do sometimes To bring down my tolerance so to make it cheaper for a while But the trouble is when I come off heroin I remember the feeling of my uncle's fingernails when he used to sexually abuse me as a little girl and they all had stories like this if you got past the their, you know, their veil, if you could become trusted enough to get their childhood stories. They all had these stories. Like one I manipulated in, in Nottingham, a young man, he said he, he was clearly self medicating for the abuse he suffered from his father. And he would use this phrase, he says, well, my, my dad only used to belt me when I deserved it. And, you know, his emotional pain was quite clear and it, I didn't know this when I was starting off undercover. I mean, now that I've become involved in international drug policy, I read all of the academic evidence, which actually is clear evidence that people who are using drugs problematically are generally self medicating for childhood trauma, whether it's physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, or whatever. Now I know this, but at the time, working undercover, I was learning this. from the people involved. And now I refer to it as weaponizing empathy. Now that young man in Nottingham, he was a user dealer and he was actually on bail, for dealing heroin for one of the groups I was interested in. So I used him, you know, I went, I used to go shoplifting with him. Which was great fun, you know, sorry to all of those listeners out there who are involved in shop security, but at the time I couldn't help enjoying it. I suppose I had the luxury of knowing I wasn't going to get, trouble for it, but anyway. but I spent time doing that with him to get to know him, to manipulate him. And of course he was arrested. And eventually he did three and a half years in jail. But at the time that he was in police custody. He went on to minute watch suicide watch. And the reason for that is that he thought I was his one friend in the world that he'd never had the first person in his life that he'd actually been able to confide in. Now, of course, I developed those skills to listen to people, to listen to them and to make the most of that emotional connection to get people to do what I wanted. So, you know, when I heard that. that was what happened. I mean, that really hit me in the stomach. It was hard to listen to.

Yoyo: 17:40

we've discussed already that you have suffered some PTSD and you still do to this day. Is that because, in fact, I don't even want to guess. I'm just going to ask you why you think you have PTSD as a result of the work you were doing. What do you think is the cause of that, if you don't mind?

Neil: 17:59

Yeah, that's no problem at all. So I am diagnosed with chronic, PTSD. Two of the three psychiatrists that I've seen have said that it's actually complex PTSD and moral injury. Moral injury is very similar to PTSD. It was first identified in Vietnam veterans returning from that particular war. And it's basically from a profound sense of guilt by causing harm to other So my mental health condition is complicated, and obviously I've spent a lot of time reflecting on it. And I'm quite sure that I had PTSD before at least my last two operations. So I was piling on, complexity. That's the C in CPTSD. I was piling on complexity for quite a lot, but the thing that's caused me the most depression And nightmares and sleep loss and all of those wonderful variety of symptoms that this condition gives you is the moral injury, you know, the fact that I have caused harm to other human beings. You know, you can rationalize it and say that I didn't understand the harm I was causing at the time. I have learned to understand this situation better, but it's not, you know, mental health. Conditions are not rational, you know, there's part of my brain will not let up and self attack, you know, for what I've done to others. it's not healthy to be causing harm to other people and to try to actually contradict one's own ethical center or moral center, which is what I did, you know, because it came to a point where I knew the harm that I was causing. I knew that these are people who were hurting. who was suffering the most horrendous childhood trauma. And I knew that there were things that could be done to help them, and yet all of the representative of the state, all of the resources of the state, were poured into me to actually cause them further harm. So I knew I was doing that, and yet I pushed those doubts to one side in order to catch the bad guy. At the end of the operation, right? to catch, to, to catch the villain. Quite often, if I speak in front of, a police audience, nowadays, I do, I spoke just, in December in, at an event hosted by, in the Warsaw Police Headquarters in Poland. I've just been speaking to police in Malaysia. I speak to the cops all over the world. And I say this kind of thing, and there'll be a cop will say, Yeah, but You know, you still caught the bad guy. You've just told us these stories. You know, you still caught these gangsters at the end of the operation. And it's true. You know, I, I, I've caught all sorts of, of vicious people. You know, I've done, I can tell you some details about catching. So the burger bar boys from Birmingham or, or, or other gangsters. But where do these gangsters come from? Where, where do they come from? Many of them, they will, they will have sat in school at the age of 12 and not thought they were going to grow up to be murdering gangsters. I'll give you just one example of many to try and emphasize the point I'm trying to make. The first time I bought heroin from a child was in the city of Leicester in 2001. And then it was really, really unusual. Of course, now we have 50,000 children of the frontline dealing heroin, crack cocaine in the uk. European Europe's leader in child exploitation go, go Britain. Um, but then it was really, really unusual and quite shocking. And, and I bought heroin off this 16-year-old and he was very childlike friendly child. He, you could have a laugh with him. Over the space of six months, I saw him turn into, from a child, into a terrifying 17 year old. Very, very adult, indeed. And, in fact, the last time I saw him, the last time I bought off him, he, as we were walking down the road, he smashed my head into the side of a lamppost, just to let me know who was boss. Now he changed drastically over that six months because he had to adapt amongst his peers to learn his trade to become potentially the most ruthless gang to be the most that was prepared to use violence in order to secure territory. And most importantly. to intimidate others so that they wouldn't be grasped up. The pressure felt by police to get information through informants increases the level of violence, especially amongst organised criminality and drug dealing. Because they know that if an informant, a would be informant is making a decision who they're going to grasp up, they're not going to grasp up the scariest. So that's a transactional thing which drives the violence on the streets. Many cops do not understand that or take the time to really let that sink in. But it's a fact all over the world, but the point is I saw him change and our drug policy is changing the personality of our young men in our urban areas. This is what is behind knife crime and increasing violence. It's prohibition. It's prohibition. Now we've seen this develop. We've seen this change over time. So you know, when I tell these stories of catching these gangs and some of them murderers. They are a product of policy and it doesn't have to be this way, you know, if we look in our history, the British system, people who used heroin problematically, once were prescribed heroin, there was no illicit market, there were no organized gangsters, there were no young men. Working out how to become successful in that marketplace and becoming violent because the market was controlled by doctors with prescription pads and not children with weapons. We've done this to ourselves with policy and there is clear evidence in our history of how we did it better. There was a time when Britain led the way with drug policy.

Yoyo: 24:03

When we look at how we sit in Europe as a nation. What country is getting it right, in your professional opinion? What does good look like?

Neil: 24:12

Well, there are many examples of good. There is no country that's got it good on all fronts. But the country I would draw people's attention to most of all is Switzerland. A very conservative country, very conservative. But in 1994 they had a significant heroin problem. And the then health minister, Ruth Dreyfus, who later went on to become president, looked around the world as to what was the best evidence for the solution. She looked at Britain, and she looked at the evidence from the British system, which showed that if you prescribe heroin and you take the market away from organized crime, you dramatically reduce crime, you save lives, and you remove the problem. At that point in time, we went on an extra get tough policy and we went in the wrong direction. Switzerland used our evidence and started to use the British system and prescribe to their problematic heroin users, because they had this open drug scene in Zurich and various places. As a result, they dramatically reduced their crime. Burglaries quickly dropped by 50%, street sex work virtually disappeared, and the heroin problem now, well, they don't have one. They don't have one. We're worried about fentanyl and other synthetic chemicals coming into a heroin market here. We've got thousands and thousands of people dying in the heroin market. We've got 50, 000 children dealing in that market. In Switzerland, none of those problems exist. None of them exist. And the real kicker for me, as a drug policy activist, is they use British evidence. for this British evidence. The Netherlands has copied them, but that's where it stopped. Evidence is there, but political ideology gets in the way of pragmatic appreciation for evidence, I'm afraid.

Yoyo: 26:00

I'd love to know your opinion in terms of that political ideology because you know, we all know that we're in a fairly divisive political state in the sense of you are either this or you're either that and you can hear, you know, any current government. They could be one or the other. You can hear the other one saying, Oh, now we're just going to pay people to take drugs. You know, you can just see that the newspaper storylines, it's being massively mismanaged by the media, isn't it? What sort of part do you think they play in the challenge, the hurdles to get over?

Neil: 26:34

It is challenging because there's a feedback loop between media and politics and sometimes cops don't help either. Uh, you know, we should all commit to evidence, especially as a former police officer. I think that's one of the most important things we should do for any policy. You know, evidence is sacrosanct and police are not doing so quite often where police will announce that they've had a successful raid. They've had a success. They've successfully seized the biggest seizure of a drug ever. The biggest since the last one or until the next one, or if they've caught this big gang and a senior cop will come out with some very unfortunate phrases like we have made the streets safer, or we have prevented people from getting these drugs and it's a nonsense because no police activity at all has any impact on the drug market. Nobody's going without their drug of choice today. We're a many, many, many years past the point where it even affected the price or purity many years past. So honesty from police would influence media. It would if we were to say, you know, this is, we've made this seizure because we are tasked to do this by policy and regulation, but this will not have any impact on the streets. Let's be honest. We can, we couldn't be honest, but it's in our, it's in our mandate as cops or former cops, but you're right. There was a big problem with the media. not asking the right questions, sometimes not asking the right questions of senior cops, like, will this reduce crime in your area officer, or actually is there often an increase in violence where there's a gap in the market officer, you know, these kinds of questions, but yeah, that. Often, but a big problem is, of course, that it's a political football. Drug policy is a way of bashing the opposition. The other party is soft on drugs. What I want is accusing the other party of being soft on evidence and a commitment to following evidence. That's what I would like to see.

Yoyo: 28:33

And yet, in the middle, we've got human collateral. we've got prisons that are nothing more than a human landfill site for just dumping rubbish with no end in sight there of any positive outcome. what do gangsters really think about prison, in your experience, you know, is there a fear of being locked up and taken off the streets?

Neil: 28:57

Oh, no, not at all. The, the idea that prisoners are deterrent, especially within the drug market, is absolutely ludicrous. There isn't there it, you know, I've spoken to many, many dealers over many, many years and the risks versus reward There's no question, the rewards that can be made within the drug market are extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. cops who are perhaps shouting now at the speakers that are listening to this, that we can't take legal control of the drug markets, because Gangsters will just do other gangster things. They'll still commit crimes. There'll be no difference. You know, that's just not true. There's so many dealers I've spoken to who wouldn't ever commit another crime because it's too big a risk and too little a gain. There is virtually no risk within the drug markets. Those people who get caught are incredibly unlucky, incredibly so they don't care about the risks. You know, even those people who do get caught a lot and get long sentences, they'll just make money trading drugs in prison. It's the same groups, same gangs that are dealing inside that control the drugs in urban environments. So you run up a line of credit and you know that either your family is going to get exploited outside the prison, or you're going to have to commit a huge amount of crime when you come out to pay for the drugs that you had in prison. Which makes a high prison population an extraordinary driver of crime. Extraordinary driver. And is a significant reason why we've got such increase in retail crime.

Yoyo: 30:24

I saw a meme the other day, of, how Trump's, going to build the wall between America and Mexico. And the meme was basically demonstrating that the wall would get, good enough and high enough that Americans would be climbing over it to go and get their drugs. Yeah.

Neil: 30:43

Yeah. And it was

Yoyo: 30:44

just, and. How is, how, fentanyl is a big issue for America, uh, clearly because it's just being allowed in, end of. what's, what risk does fentanyl present to the UK? Neil?

Neil: 30:59

Well, I wouldn't say it's being let in. I would say that you've got no control over it. The idea that we can control our borders and stop drugs coming in is just ludicrous. We can't. We know it doesn't matter how, how big a percentage of the market you think you've seized. It's still a fraction of the value of the market that's sold. It makes no difference, the quantities. But fentanyl and the other synthetic opioids, and actually it's nitazines, which is the biggest threat in Europe. They are part of what's called the iron law of prohibition. And when you prohibit a drug, you will always get stronger and more dangerous versions of that drug. So when you add alcohol prohibition within a few weeks, you could no longer buy beer because it's not so financially beneficial to smuggle beer because of the volume. It's much easier to smuggle. spirits and moonshine. So you will always get, it's just the economics, you're always going to get more dangerous drugs. Fentanyl and some of the nitrazines are a hundred times per weight stronger than heroin, so they're easier to smuggle, so they're financially a better bet. The problem now of course is we also have interruptions with the heroin market with what's going on in, in Afghanistan, which is disastrous for Northern Europe because the heroin market has been so stable for so long. We're now getting nitrazines, we're getting an increase in deaths. We have a tsunami of deaths increase on the horizon and there's nothing being done. Not really. You know, we've got one overdose prevention site and just opened in Glasgow. It's not enough. It's not fast enough. and we need to be moving. Quickly on this, because some of the most vulnerable people in our society that we really should be caring for are going to die, more of them, and with every death brings more trauma within the community. You know, and, and for those cynical people out there that think, oh, well, once they've all died off, at least there'll be less deaths because they'll be dead. trauma is going to keep coming. And if we allow trauma to be embedded, it's like a cancer. The next generation is going to suffer more of it.

Yoyo: 32:59

Yeah. In fact, it does spiral. I saw the program about Glasgow and the safe drug center taking center. It's absolutely phenomenal what they're doing there and it's happening in other areas, isn't it, in Europe. But one isn't going to make that big a difference, but it is making a difference to Glasgow's community for sure. But I do think, certainly having served time in the police myself, there is a stigma amongst drug takers. At that level, because there is this view of, they won't help themselves. There's nothing you can do. You know, the dirty, you know, they don't care about themselves. Why should we? And, and I, and I just think that even in my time in the police, I saw this lack of considering them as human beings. And it could be part of the reason now why it's still so hard to fight for them. Because people will say, well, they're not fighting for themselves. What you've said about each of their backstories is compelling. What you're doing is you're humanizing a part of our society that has become dehumanized.

Neil: 34:02

Yeah, and I, you know, as I speak to a lot of cops around the world, and most cops get it, they don't want to be sending people repeatedly to prison who clearly need help. Most cops that I, that I speak to at the moment, they understand this, and they understand that there are better ways of doing things. But I just want to raise a cost effectiveness thing as well, and also you mentioned Mental health and, you mentioned, sort of health and safety safeguards. Well, there are no health and safety safeguards for mental health problems within policing. And that's one of the things I campaign on is around mental health. there should be. Ways of reducing their mental health impact on cops. And this is all intertwined, all of it. So let me give you an example. One of the operations I did was with the burger bar boys. And it was an operation where I thought I was going to die on multiple occasions, but I was really pleased at the end of seven months to look at the whiteboard, you know, in the safe location and see all of the photos and the names. It was extraordinary how much evidence there was. There was evidence against the six main burger bar boys. One of which was implicated in seven different murders. He was related to the murder of the two young women, a year before in, in Birmingham. We've got evidence against the six main gangsters, but 90 other people. So I thought, wow, this is going to sweep the town clean. This is going to be extraordinary. We had cops brought in from five different counties, hundreds of cops. And when the dust settled, everyone was arrested. I spoke to the intel, cell guy who was tasked with keeping his ear to the ground as to the impact and he says, yep, we managed to interrupt the drug supply in Northampton for a full two hours, seven months of work. I was compounding my PTSD with all of these horrendous events for the sake of interrupting that drug supply for two hours. Now, the resources that went into that operation and every operation like it are extraordinary. But why do we do these? Theoretically, we're doing these to make society safer from drugs. That's the theory, political theory. But as I hope I've tried to explain already, we haven't had any impact. I spoke recently, to the guy who was running that operation, the SIO. It was called Ali White. He now lectures at the University of Law in London, and I managed to meet up with him last year, and he'd heard me speak on various things, podcasts, and he's read my book, and he says, you know, I have to say I agree with you, because we got rid of the burger bar boys, and do you know what? The next gang were even worse, and that's from his voice, and he was won over. By paying attention to the way that I was unpicking this and listening to this. and that's true across policing. You know, it's not just me. I'm part of a movement and that movement is growing. People get it, but sorry to be jumping around a little bit, but in terms of cost effectiveness, we've just mentioned the overdose prevention site in Scotland. Some people have said, Oh, it's expensive. It's only going to save a few lives., what are we doing? What is the point of our policy? Is it to make society safer? And who is it meant to make society safer for? We're meant to be saving lives, right? So let's follow the evidence because evidence supports overdose prevention sites. Evidence supports prescribing heroin to people who need it. Evidence does not support the work that I did. There is no evidence anywhere to say that what I did made Though the work that we do in drugs policing makes society safer. So let's be honest about that. But also we have a PTSD epidemic from the 2018 study in the UK, which is the biggest study into mental health cohort in the world. It was 18, 000 participants, an extraordinary piece of research. That research suggests that one in five cops, British cops have got PTSD. Half of the rest have got precursor warning signs. That's a lot of problems, and you've got to think about the political implications of that as well, because cops are constantly slagged off of their behavior. They're constantly attacked in the media. Let's remember, PTSD interrupts sensible decision making, it amplifies prejudice, it increases your likelihood to lose your temper. Why is this not being considered? And why are our cops not being looked after instead of attacked for when things go wrong? You know, I speak for myself and many, many people I know who had a mental health breakdown within policing. I wasn't supported. I was attacked. We're always attacked. You compare that with colleagues who had a broken back or seriously injured physically. Everyone comes around with a, with the hugs and the loving care. If you're mentally ill, you are ostracized. You're attacked in the press, so we need to be considering these things, but there's a one important part from that study in 2018 It said that the biggest mitigating factor that can protect you from a slide into mental illness is if your work is considered meaningless or Meaningful if it's meaningful, it's a protection against mental health problems. If it's meaningless, it's an exacerbating factor and there is other evidence from other studies which says this. So let's consider drug policy in that issue and let's really seriously take care of our, of the mental health of our cops.

Yoyo: 39:42

Yeah. Uh, I just, you just hit so many points. You're smashing this out of the park. I know a lot of people will be in agreement with you, actually. And I can't believe that we've been able to have this conversation over one article that you were involved with, on LinkedIn, which was headed, why major drug busts don't work, an undercover cop explains. And you've done such a phenomenal way of explaining that. Next steps, Neil, I think you've done an extremely good job of explaining the problem Incredibly well. Are you able to change hearts and minds when you speak to police audiences, by the way?

Neil: 40:23

Oh, yes, generally, wherever it is, like in Warsaw last, last December, which had senior cops from right across, Eastern Europe, many so former Soviet bloc nations, you know, people, cops are looking for solutions. And police like solutions to problems rather than just problems being highlighted. And of course, when I talk about mental health, there are solutions coming. There are. You would expect this to be a difficult sell, but it's not. The solution is psychedelics. There is now evidence that psychedelic drugs are, an extraordinary, powerful medical intervention. And what I want to see is senior cops calling for the new innovative psychedelic therapy for their troops for the sake of the mental health of police officers. That's what, one of the things, one of the many things I'm working on. when it's explained that this is evidence led, this is where the, evidence is, you know, you've got military veterans getting benefit from it in the United States. Our cops here need to be getting access to these therapies., so they can keep working, so they're not abandoned. When they have a mental health, difficulty, so that's one issue, but also police are also looking for solutions. They don't want to be constantly criminalizing people who need help. They don't. And there are. A collection of drug law reforms, which would make policing easier. It would make policing more meaningful. It would avoid some of the meaningless constant sending people to prison who need help. so one of those is, legal cannabis markets. For example, which is proven to protect our children better. So if you look at the statistics from any jurisdiction in North America where there is a legal adult cannabis market Underage consumption has gone down. Categoric proof that legal regulation protects our children better than prohibition So that's one thing and it would take huge amounts of money away from organized crime. It would Remove the blight of illegal grows that take up so much time and so much resources from cops who need to be doing other things. But most importantly, We need legal control of the more dangerous drugs. We need a medical model of regulation for heroin And in fact one of the things i'm that there are many aspects with that that i'm working on But there's something at the moment that i'm working on. I had meetings on it yesterday I can't quite talk about it yet because there's a sort of pr angle to this But it involves recruiting businesses who support change for the sake of saving money Of businesses in the retail sector. And that's what I'm working. I can't really go into too much detail at the moment, but if there's anybody out there who works in the retail business, whether it's security or small business or chain business, I am working on a way right now to save you money. And to make the communities in which your shops are safer. So if you're interested, please get in touch.

Yoyo: 43:32

Neil, there's already somebody I'm going to introduce you to. What can I say, profound, wishing you all the very best. I love the fact that you're a full time activist in this area. We'll put all of your LinkedIn details, ways for people to get in touch with you, just to ask for more information, join in, support in whichever way they can and want to. Neil Woods, thank you so much for coming in and talking to us on the Security Circle. podcast.

Neil: 43:58

Thank you so much for having me.