County Lines Drug Dealing and the Railway

[Starmill]

What would happen if the response was simply “mind your own business?”.

I’m in two minds on all this. I get that there’s a need to detect crime, however I’m not particularly comfortable with people being singled out and having to explain their legitimate lawful business.

Same as if you were doing anything that looked suspicious to a police officer, but wasn't actually any evidence of a potential offence. Likely no further questions would be asked at all, but a report of the officer's observation may be made and used to inform future policing. Police forces do it all the time, same as being stopped for driving a very expensive looking car late at night in a poorer part of town where it stands out. They might ask to see your licence and verify the vehicle is insured but they've no power to do anything beyond that just because you're doing something they view as suspicious.

I would be a bit more polite than that or you might fail the attitude test and just get delayed debating it.
I got stopped by the police for yawning once.

oh and for walking in the snow another time….but that was admittedly at 2am on a weekday

I was once asked by Greater Manchester Police where I was going when I was walking to board a train at Ardwick. I told them I was going to catch the train, which they seemed very surprised by but once they checked that a train was indeed due a few minutes later they had no further questions.

 

[bramling]

I would be a bit more polite than that or you might fail the attitude test and just get delayed debating it.
I got stopped by the police for yawning once.

There are ways of handling that one, “Am I under arrest, if not then good day to you” is a suitable response.

One doesn’t want to be too flippant, but being harassed and regarded as suspicious simply for going about lawful business does get my back up somewhat.

 

[Llanigraham]

I really don't think people realise just how this works. It is much more observational, looking out for unusual patterns, and out of place people, and yes, possibly some gentle questions. Staff aren't going to be holding people on the train or being "hard", but if there are concerns about the possible welfare of a suspicious youngster then it is more likely to be a phone call to control who may arrange for the train to be met by the Police (around here normally the County force).
It is being used and on the Cambrian has worked, and I understand it has also worked in the same way elsewhere.

 

[Meerkat]

There are ways of handling that one, “Am I under arrest, if not then good day to you” is a suitable response.

One doesn’t want to be too flippant, but being harassed and regarded as suspicious simply for going about lawful business does get my back up somewhat.

I’m a football fan so know all about being unfairly treated as a criminal (and cattle some times!)
If they did it in an irritating way I would go for: ”I’m sorry, but I don’t have to answer that”. If they persevere then politely say that i think it’s important we maintain our rights or we become a lesser society.

 

[Krokodil]

From comments made by friends who are staff on the Cambrian, they can stand out like a sore thumb. Typically there aren't many 16 year olds with a rucksack and a Brummy accent travelling to Borth when it isn't school holidays, for example.

It was amazing the number of cars carry illegal substances into Wales that were caught when we had stricter lock-down rules than England. One was stopped in Welshpool with over £10k's worth of cocaine!

In the lockdown the adult drug dealers who travelled on trains bought hi-vis jackets to look like builders. The jackets were far too clean though for anyone who had been working on site for more than five minutes.

 

[gazzaa2]

Is there a bit in your research about the moral panic around drug use resulting in its continual criminalisation? Because that’s the root cause of all this, really.

Working to end that is the only functional tactic anyone can use to combat the human costs of criminalisation. Anything else is just like having your foot caught in a trap and trying to free it by painting your toenails.

I'm not pro-drugs at all, but prohibition only works for gangsters and dealers. Just like when America criminalised alcohol 100 years ago. It's utterly futile and just fuels organised crime and violent crime.

 

[Meerkat]

Just like when America criminalised alcohol 100 years ago.

What are you proposing legalising? Because I don't think the effects of legalised heroin are really comparable to alcohol.

 

[randyrippley]

I know your post is tongue-in-cheek but young girls are already used extensively by drugs gangs, as they are incredibly vulnerable to other forms of making money through abuse (sex work/pornography chief among them).

There's a national - though not yet officially recognised - problem of Asian (mainly Chinese) girls being trafficked across the country by rail.
Based in London they're hired out to massage parlours and pop-up brothels for a week or two at a time. All working illegally on expired student or tourist visas, most can't speak english. Typically a minder takes them to the train, gives them a ticket, and they're met at destination by another minder. Often trapped by high debts through bonded labour schemes they're too scared to try to escape.
Next time you see a single Chinese girl with no English on a long distance train, wonder why she's there.

 

[al78]

There are ways of handling that one, “Am I under arrest, if not then good day to you” is a suitable response.

One doesn’t want to be too flippant, but being harassed and regarded as suspicious simply for going about lawful business does get my back up somewhat.

I'd hardly call being asked a question because of some reason like there has been a crime spree in the area as harassment. I am coming to the conclusion that people in this country are becoming more and more delicate and can't cope with even a small deviation from normality. It is, I suspect, a symptom of living in a prosperous and safe society and many people haven't been exposed to real dangerous risk or hardship as in many other countries*, and is also why I think the spatial awareness of many individuals going about their business is very poor (e.g. people nearly walking into you because they are gawping at their smartphone screens or walking three abreast across the complete width of a footpath and don't give way to an oncoming pedestrian until they are two meters from them).

I once got pulled over by the police in Brighton when I was heading home late at night. It was a routine random check for drink drivers. After asking what I'd been doing and whether I'd consumed any alcohol, I was quickly on my way after they were satisfied as they couldn't smell alcohol on my breath.

*One of my bridge partners used to live in South Africa, a country where the government cannot afford afford to pay out for assistance to its citizens in times of need, so people have had to develop resilience in the face of a crisis, as such they are a lot more into helping themselves and each other than in the UK.

 

[Sprinter107]

I havent a problem with being stopped by a police office. Ive been stopped a few times when going home after a late shift, and as soon as they know I'm on my way home from work, theyre as good as gold. Its good to know they're out there.
But once I was stopped by 2 officers, an older one and a younger one, and the way I was spoken to by the older officer was nothing short of disgraceful. Even though I was in uniform, he didn't seem to want to believe I was doing something other than just going home. The younger officer looked embarrassed to he there. With that attitude, that officer didn't get any slack from me. He got back what he gave out.

 

[gazzaa2]

What are you proposing legalising? Because I don't think the effects of legalised heroin are really comparable to alcohol.

It needs to be regulated, leaving these things in the hands of organised crime is a disaster.

Heroin use has also exploded since the war on drugs. It used to be mostly contained.

 

[stuu]

What are you proposing legalising? Because I don't think the effects of legalised heroin are really comparable to alcohol.

No, in terms of adverse effects alcohol comes top of the list of recreational substances

 

[Geoff DC]

Heroin use has also exploded since the war on drugs. It used to be mostly contained.

That's a fact.
Back in around 1968 when I was at college living in a student flat in North London (On a corner with the door on the side streer) The local Chemist was one that dispensed heroin to licensed addicts.
One morning around 8am I went to the door and found a chap on the porch with a tourniquet about to inject his daily prescription, I said you can't do that there, come in and do it in better surroundings.
He was clean, tidy & well educated - his downfall was ex-military, medication for injuries. He did no harm to anyone except himself.
IIRC around that time there were about 2,000 registered addicts & the NHS dealt with them fairly compassionately.

THEN came Margaret Thatcher & it all changed, no more compassionate prescriptions, that opened the door to criminal opportunities - in no time at all addiction exploded and a new industry established.

 

[Cowley]

We’ve got two threads currently running about drugs. I think to avoid duplication anything specifically related to the county lines issues and how to deal with it should stay in this discussion and all the other wider stuff can be posted in the thread below so that it’s in the same place.

Thanks everyone.

Consensus on legality of drugs in Britain

From discussion on this thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/county-lines-drug-dealing-and-the-railway.244471/ I'll expand here without derailing the previous thread on my thoughts on drugs. Firstly, there are legal (prescribed by doctors) versions of many drugs which I'm not concerned...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[61653 HTAFC]

On the "County Lines" thing, for me the surprising factor is just how much demand for various illicit substances there is in sleepy places such as Looe and Borth!

Or perhaps the sleepiness is part of the problem?

 

[bramling]

On the "County Lines" thing, for me the surprising factor is just how much demand for various illicit substances there is in sleepy places such as Looe and Borth!

Or perhaps the sleepiness is part of the problem?

Quite probably correct on the latter. For a purportedly prosperous country, a lot of issues seem to bubble away under the surface in Britain.

 

[godfreycomplex]

Or perhaps the sleepiness is part of the problem?

Short answer, yes. If people can’t get their psychological and sociological needs met in a healthy way (and we all have them, this isn’t an us and then scenario) the human brain will try and find them in other ways. And a lot of those ways are things that are excluded to people except through the means provided by so called organised crime.

Unfortunately the toxic “green and pleasant land/home is your castle” mentality that infests this country is a large part of the exacerbation of that, as any suggestion of fixing these problems requires an admission that there’s a problem in the first place, which in many places is seen as tantamount to treason, but that’s another moan for another time

 

[zwk500]

On the "County Lines" thing, for me the surprising factor is just how much demand for various illicit substances there is in sleepy places such as Looe and Borth!

Or perhaps the sleepiness is part of the problem?

The sleepiness is certainly part of the problem, and the county lines gangs manufactrue their own demand. However the big targets of county lines will still be large towns, often ones with deprivation.

 

[Llanigraham]

On the "County Lines" thing, for me the surprising factor is just how much demand for various illicit substances there is in sleepy places such as Looe and Borth!

Or perhaps the sleepiness is part of the problem?

Not sure about Looe, but think about what the next town is to Borth and what a large part of the population is. The point is that Borth station is less likely to be "policed" than Aber. And you might be surprised how bad the drug problem is even in sleepy rural towns. For example Llandrindod Wells is well known as having a big problem with older heroin addicts, and weed is common everywhere.

Certainly during the roadside stops that occured when Wales had more strict travel restrictions than England, the most prevelant drugs found were either heroin or cocaine. One stop resulted inover £10k's worth of coke being found in the car. I was stopped twice doing hospital car runs at Welshpool Mart on a Friday and one evening they had a sniffer dog with them that came up to my car.

 

[ChrisC]

Not sure about Looe, but think about what the next town is to Borth and what a large part of the population is. The point is that Borth station is less likely to be "policed" than Aber. And you might be surprised how bad the drug problem is even in sleepy rural towns. For example Llandrindod Wells is well known as having a big problem with older heroin addicts, and weed is common everywhere.

There’s quite a drug problem in some of the more isolated towns in the West of Scotland. The two worst places I heard about were Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre and Stornaway out in the Outer Hebrides. Perhaps it is because in comparison to their surrounding sparsely populated areas these are towns in very isolated locations. I know lots of towns in the West of Scotland often known as tourist destinations like Dunoon and Oban also have quite high drug use. It’s certainly far more a case of them being transported by ferry passengers than by rail in some of these places.

 

[bramling]

There’s quite a drug problem in some of the more isolated towns in the West of Scotland. The two worst places I heard about were Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre and Stornaway out in the Outer Hebrides. Perhaps it is because in comparison to their surrounding sparsely populated areas these are towns in very isolated locations. I know lots of towns in the West of Scotland often known as tourist destinations like Dunoon and Oban also have quite high drug use. It’s certainly far more a case of them being transported by ferry passengers than by rail in some of these places.

A lot of this would seem to come down to a combination of depression and boredom. For some reason neither of these issues seem to be particularly well tackled. Indeed anecdotally I’d say things have got worse; it certainly doesn’t feel like living standards have improved in many ways over the last two decades.

Likewise our education system doesn’t seem to do a good job of equipping people to find constructive things to do with their time, especially activities which don’t cost money.

Many towns reek of cannabis in the evening. We were shocked walking round Chichester (Sussex) on a weekday evening not so long ago, the air was absolutely full of it. And that’s a relatively prosperous area.

 

[Llanigraham]

Many towns reek of cannabis in the evening. We were shocked walking round Chichester (Sussex) on a weekday evening not so long ago, the air was absolutely full of it. And that’s a relatively prosperous area.

That's all the aged hippies living there!

 

[Dai Corner]

That's all the aged hippies living there!

I guess if they're aged it can't be too injurious to their health?

 

[zwk500]

That's all the aged hippies living there!

There's an awful lot of arts students in Chichester...

 

[sheff1]

I was once asked by Greater Manchester Police where I was going when I was walking to board a train at Ardwick. I told them I was going to catch the train, which they seemed very surprised by but once they checked that a train was indeed due a few minutes later they had no further questions.

I was once asked by West Midlands police what I was doing. As I was standing at a bus stop I would have thought it was fairly obvious, but my reply of "waiting for a bus" seemed to irritate them. Fortunately, before they could ask any more stupid questions the bus came into view and I flagged it down.

'Look closer', but of course remember not to stare at people while you're doing it, as the other posters on the station tell you you're not allowed to do that......

Perhaps we need another poster explaining when 'looking closer' changes to 'staring'.

 

[Meerkat]

I was once asked by West Midlands police what I was doing. As I was standing at a bus stop I would have thought it was fairly obvious, but my reply of "waiting for a bus" seemed to irritate them. Fortunately, before they could ask any more stupid questions the bus came into view and I flagged it down.


Perhaps we need another poster explaining when 'looking closer' changes to 'staring'.

Maybe I am just a wuss but I tend to have a policy of not looking closer at people I suspect might be involved in organised crime!

 

[Lloyds siding]

I was once asked by West Midlands police what I was doing. As I was standing at a bus stop I would have thought it was fairly obvious, but my reply of "waiting for a bus" seemed to irritate them. Fortunately, before they could ask any more stupid questions the bus came into view and I flagged it down.


Perhaps we need another poster explaining when 'looking closer' changes to 'staring'.

had my nose broken for staring...I wasn't.

 

[pethadine82]

You would be surprised but in very affluent areas where there is money drugs will follow. Take Virginia Water or Alton for example.

 

[Dai Corner]

You would be surprised but in very affluent areas where there is money drugs will follow. Take Virginia Water or Alton for example.

Even fairly rural areas like west Dorset apparently. My mother lives in Bridport and tells me there is a certain drug problem there. The couriers won't have come by rail though as the branch closed about fifty years ago!

 

[jon0844]

You would be surprised but in very affluent areas where there is money drugs will follow. Take Virginia Water or Alton for example.

Indeed, Welwyn Garden City has a very big problem. A lot of the residents on the 'posh' side may wish to deny the issue for fear of it hurting house prices or something, but I am pretty certain it will be people within the conservation area that make up a fair percentage of buyers.

Drug dealers exist because of customers.. same as scam callers still make phone calls because there are gullible victims out there.