Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Hidden Article

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

War on Drugs a Costly Sham

Wade Agnew | 17.05.2007 10:31 | Social Struggles | London

Tells how the “War on Drugs” is a complete waste of taxpayers money, and how marijuana vaporizers offer more protection than legislation or law enforcement.

VapoHead Vaporizer
VapoHead Vaporizer


We humans are a predictable lot; we continually ignore history, are afraid of everything, and act emotionally rather than rationally, especially when it comes to the vexatious and controversial subject of drugs in society. We don’t learn from our mistakes; destined to repeat them over and over on a recurring loop of denial. Wash over some orchestrated religious propaganda and you have a recipe for disaster.
The author of the recently released autobiography; “Cheating the Hangman: True Confessions of a Heroin Trafficker” knows what he’s talking about when it comes to illegal drugs. Wade Agnew has been using them daily for forty years. He started with alcohol, quickly dismissing it after the revelation of marijuana in 1968 while at University. This discovery would dictate the course of his life.

For all the details of his terrifyingly authentic tale go to;
 http://www.cheatingthehangman.com.au/home_book.html

That the “War on Drugs” was the brainchild of the Nixon administration; the most seriously paranoid US president of the 20th Century, tells us a great deal about its genesis and “raison d’etre”. Every society that has existed since the beginning of time has used “consciousness altering” substances, often in highly spiritual circumstances. This should have told us something, but apparently not.
Ignorance and political ambition are a volatile mix. At the start of the 21st Century, Australia was experiencing a flood of heroin. Established by refugees after the war in S.E.Asia, the Vietnamese community was now well integrated into mainstream society. Many of these citizens were ethnic Chinese with strong family links back to their homeland. With the opening up of the post-war Viet Nam, they became the conduit for Thai and Burmese white powder heroin then flooding into Australia. This community was very wary of officialdom, and notoriously difficult to penetrate. As a consequence the country was experiencing a huge drop in the price of heroin on the streets of major cities. It even penetrated far flung inland country towns. The price per gram fell to unprecedented lows, and the purity was astounding high by world standards.

“I was well and truly retired by then, and could only look on with envy as no4 white powder flooded into Australian cities,” says Wade from his home in Brisbane. “People were making serious money from the glut of high quality heroin.”
An unfortunate consequence of the high purity was a sharp rise in the number of overdoses on the streets of Australian cities. Addicts unused to such purity were dropping like flies. At one point police in Cabramatta; a Vietnamese enclave in western Sydney; now the heroin capital of the country, begged whoever was distributing a particularly pure shipment (close to 95%) to cut their drugs to curb the death rate.
Not long after, the local market began to experience a serious heroin drought, and the conservative Australian government began crowing, claiming its “Tough on Drugs” policy had been responsible. This drought was quickly followed by an avalanche of Methamphetamines. This was no coincidence; the two phenomena were inextricably linked. It quickly became evident that the Australian Government was taking credit for decisions of criminals. The “War on Drugs” has little or no effect on the availability of illegal drugs on the streets of Australia or anywhere else for that matter. All it does is pump-prime organized crime, and turn otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals.
The following are excerpts from a report into the heroin glut entitled; “The Case for an Inquiry into its Causes and the Flood of Methamphetamines” by W.M. Bush; no relation.

“The article disputes the claim by the Federal Government that Australian law enforcement financed by its Tough on Drugs Strategy was primarily responsible for the heroin drought and resulting fall in overdose deaths. Law enforcement agencies, notably the Australian Federal Police through its Commissioner, have revealed intelligence to the effect that Asian crime syndicates have assessed that there is a large and very profitable market in Australia for amphetamine-like drugs, and that they have made a marketing decision to promote them rather than heroin.
The evidence suggests strongly that the prime causes of the drought were a series of poor opium harvests in Burma and these marketing decisions. No other explanation fits the known facts including;
• The drought being confined to Australia
• A big rise in availability of amphetamine-like drugs imported through the same channels as heroin
• The known large rise in recent years in production in South East Asia of these artificial drugs
• The greater profit derivable from them than from heroin
• Their lower vulnerability to law enforcement interdiction.
If law enforcement had an effect it was probably only a subsidiary factor. The evidence is strong that there would have been no drought in the absence of the other factors.”

“If anyone should know about the profits to be made when drugs are made illegal, it’s me. I spent thirty years selling drugs; it’s not for the faint hearted, but there are huge amounts of money to be made”, says Wade. “I only use marijuana these days; I can’t afford the high cost of heroin. “I inhale the vapours with a marijuana vaporizer. In fact I import them for the local and world market; I sell the VapoHead Herbal Vaporizer. Marijuana Vaporizers are bloody brilliant.”
You can check them out on my website at;
 http://www.cheatingthehangman.com.au

I still use heroin occasionally when I have the funds. The quality in Australia is the envy of addicts everywhere; almost always white powder, and usually with 50% purity or higher. However it’s very expensive, reflecting the difficulty of getting it safely ashore. If I could afford to, I would certainly use heroin more often,” Wade adds with a grin.

Wade Agnew
- e-mail: wagneww@optusnet.com.au
- Homepage: http://www.cheatingthehangman.com.au

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech