SIMMONDS: TEACHING OUR KIDS TO USE HEROIN RESPONSIBLY!

There is it seems no shortage of  "Adam Simmonds" Police Commisioner, stories in the local Chronicle and Echo, so keen are they to quote the man and so keen is he equally to be quoted that it feels at time as we are all up there at Wooton Hall in what he calls "The West Wing" with him as he pronounces daily about the need for policing to be done the Simmonds way.

Do you remember when he wanted to bring back the old fashioned Police telephone boxes (no one has told him about mobile phones yet it seems) or when tried to defend the indefensible over accusations of cronyism after appointing his Tory  Press Agent and Best Friend on very Highly paid deputy police commissioner posts. Then he wanted to take over the fire service, then said he was misquoted when the Tory grandees intervened, and then he said he really wanted more coordination of ALL the blue light services. 40% reduction targets in violent crime are announced, faith and community directors promised to bring a
theological outlook on anti social behaviour and crime, and he has only been in post 5 minutes!

All of these announcements make me dizzy and they also have led me to publicly question his sanity (please see http://www.northamptonshire.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/87487 and fast forward to 04:17:45)

But last night he went one step further! On Radio 4's excellent "The Report" programme Commissioner Simmonds, who compares himself to "President George Washington" was asked to explain his policy to "eradicate drugs" something the whole of the US Army with military support from around the globe has not achieved despite far too many military and civilian lives being lost in Afghanistan and Columbia attempting to do so.

So he told Radio 4's reporter Simon Cox that perhaps eradication was too provocative a word and then he turned the whole policy right on its head by saying the completeand total opposite. No longer would drugs be eradicated, instead they would be tolerated.

I quote him word for word here, and all is available on the BBC iPlayer  to check my sense of fair play, when he said

"it's about educating our kids about proper drug use, from my point of view we can give out leaflets until we are blue in the face with kids. So we've got to teach kids. if they are going to use drugs, how to use them responsibly"

Holy moses, one minute we are set to wipe narcotics off the planet now we are talking about teaching kids to use drugs responsibly, without as much as breath between both statements!

And since when has anyone, anywhere  talked about teaching KIDS to USE drugs!

Now don't get me wrong, I have too have some broad minded and  radical views on refocusing attention onto the treatment of Adults addicted to drugs, which include the medical maintenance of addicts rather than their continued incarceration and criminalisation. I would rather we spent money on treatment orders than on a criminal system with a revolving door straight back into further addiction and criminality, but I have never ever spoken about teaching KIDS how to use drugs! Nor would any sane individual do so

Simon Cox therefore did give him the opportunity to explain his comments further or to perhaps rephrase his comments but he just dug himself into his drug induced hole even further by saying: (again word for word)

"if you are going to have a society which cannot uninvent heroin, the way we cannot uninvent the car, we have to get to a place where our kids understand the effects of those drugs"

So no mistake there then, two short sentences, the use of the word kids 4 times to ensure we all got the message, a u turn from eradicating drugs to us teaching kids how to use them responsibly and then a clarification that we are talking here not about dabbling in a puff of pot or two but about class A drugs such as heroin!

Has any elected individual ever gone this far? Is this new groundbreaking Tory policy? Is Michael Grove about to change the curriculum to include classes on responsible needle use? Does the Prime Minister share the Northamptonshire model as one to be desired across the nation?

And my last point, if I can be told every last uninteresting fact about our new Police and Crime Commissioner in our local newspaper and be drip fed his press releases from the self proclaimed West Wing  on a regular basis, then why isn't a story such as the one above also headline news? Not just in the locals but also in the nationals.

Radio 4  lit the blur touch paper on this last night and something tells me fireworks are about to start popping, and to help my local newspaper along how in getting in before the big boys, how about the following headline to kick off proceedings.

TORY POLICE COMMISSIONER SAYS TEACH KIDS TO USE CLASS A DRUGS.

EX TOWN MP CALLS ON HIM TO RESIGN HIS POST