I follow Merseyside police reports and had noticed how many taxi drivers have been caught for various offences including drugs and unroadworthy vehicles.

It has now been reported that more than 40 Merseyside Taxi (including private hire) drivers have tested positive for drugs this year alone. This is a horrendous statistic. It also follows the number of other drivers the police are catching.

Yet people are calling for the de-regulation of recreational drugs??? We have enough problems with drugs without increasing the amount of usage.

SOURCE

Some of them should be done for posing as qualified drivers, I think the whole industry needs a shake up, some sort of reasonable dress code, not a vest and shorts, its not the whole industry but there are too many private hire drivers coming into the industry that have little or no idea, needs more regulation.

Well me DD I'm in favour of drugs being given out to addicts from regulated clinics ..It certainly isn't working this way that's for sure, drug gangs, turf wars , stabbings. It could be regulated and maybe then we maybe see a drop in some if the evil crimes these druggies commit just to get their drugs. Yes it would cost but there is a huge cost due to criminality due to drugs. Maybe we would see a decrease in these evil drug gangs that feed on people's misery. Still keep up the education with the kids to try and stop them getting involved in this horrible stuff..It may not work but hell as I say it ain't working now!
As to taxi drivers as Casper says alot more should be done by these firms to ensure they are checked out so they are fit for the job.
..

I know that sounds like a good answer (and it is already done in the UK) however it doesn't work, it doesn't put the dealers out of business, it just makes them more determined to create more fresh customers - as is the case now, the target age is getting younger and younger, kids have money these days.

Have you seen what some of the modern drugs do to people, its no longer your spaced out people that you laugh at as you go past, they make people manic and dangerous - do you also supply those type of drugs through registered clinics as well?

Encourage more employers to do drug tests, put it in the employees contract that drug tests will be requested at random, refusal to take a drug test is grounds for dismissal.

Allocate specific manpower police officers and a separate independent monitoring cell made up of local people. It has to be the community that rejects drugs, it must be local people who are given a position of power. If the will is there it can be done. I've said before, it is not in the police's interest to eliminate drugs, it is only in their interest to regulate drugs.

Drugs is about profit, there is no practical way to lower the price (eg giving out free drugs), so you need to price the drugs upwards by making them scarce. Just keep hitting the small street level dealers non-stop, the supply slows down, the price goes up and up and up. The amount of effort and money put in trying to hit Mr Big just isn't worth it, break the chain between the users and the source at the easiest place, on the street.

There are still plenty of clubs and pubs where drugs are sold fairly openly, there are streets where you see deals going on in broad daylight, there are houses where there is a constant stream of people (and taxis), why are we still seeing this?

Pay awards to people that provide details of dealers.

Stop calling addiction an "illness" call it a plague.

Get rid of the current ABC categories of illegal drugs, drugs are either legal, illegal or prescribed.

From what I understand about the drug scene, it appears that quite a lot is imported. Now I don't believe that the Governments of this world and the authorities from all countries that are trying to tackle this problem, all over Europe for example, have not come up with the source of the most dangerous drugs yet.

It can't be possible that they have not yet found out who is reaping the $billions. So what is it that is keeping everything quiet , how much income for the sordid affair is paid to keep it quiet and to whom is the bribe or blackmail paid ?

http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/crime-threats/drugs

Free drugs for addicts is a great idea, but only in overdoses !

With the development of chemical drugs as opposed to plant based drugs I think you may find a lot of them are made in this country. Large quantities can be made in relatively small facilities.

You have to question what is going on when clubs and festivals have drug testing facilities to help drug users check their illegal drugs are non-toxic, I can't get my head around that, surely its shouting out the wrong message altogether.

Last month they were moaning about the new "rules":

Penalty points, smoking bans and sexual conversation: The 35-rule clampdown on Liverpool's private hire drivers
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/penalty-points-smoking-bans-sexual-15318520

Cools is right. Attempts to limit the supply of drugs has always proved a huge waste of money and lives. It has been obvious since prohibition in the US. All it does is to provide a lucrative market for criminal gangs, who drive their victims into crime to pay for the stuff. The urge to make money also impels criminals to target the young and impressionable.

There is also the moral question as to whether the government is exceeding its brief in telling individuals how they should conduct their lives. My preference would be that they should clearly identify the risks, regulate the quality of the product as they do with any pharmaceutical and leave it to the individual.

Even the police and army of law enforcers concerned in the drugs law are waking up to the fact that they are fighting a losing battle and achieving nothing. I suspect that Chief constables have long realised that the best way to reduce crime is to ease up on known drugs peddlers. I suspect informal rules such as not supplying them to children are observed by mutual consent.

Wish their was a like button on here, one needle full of shit for all them

Its never been tried with illegal drugs in this country in modern times, a few small scale attempts have been made but they were pointless as the drugs were still available a short distance away. A country wide enforcement of small dealers would work.



The laws are there to create an acceptable society, drugs are a massive problem to society already. It is estimated that between a third and a half of acquisitive crime (theft etc) is drug related and the value of those article is between £2bn and £2.5bn a year. Then there is the amount of damage to property, violence and anti-social behaviour also related to drugs. It is a compete plague on our society.

Legalising the drugs will make them dearer not cheaper and will not reduce the violence and anti-social behaviour, it will increase it.



Drugs are around in all sixth forms, most secondary schools and some primary schools. I worked in a number of secondary schools and none of them were clean, some were more obvious than others, its a known problem (as is paedophilia in schools). There are no unspoken rules about drugs and kids.

It does not pay the police to eliminate drugs, they have a vested interest in maintaining a level of crime. The same also applies to the judiciary.

You only have to look how poorly this country copes with alcohol to see how legalising drugs would end up. Alcohol is related to around 500,000 violent crimes every year (about half of all violent crimes) as a conservative figure. It is also a major drain on the NHS costing about £3.5bn a year, then there is the cost to Councils as well.

I agree that ideally a person should be able to take whatever they want within yjeir private life and private property but unfortunately the overspill to society cannot be contained. It is still illegal to be drunk in a public place (streets, car parks, open land, shops, most clubs and pubs) but that hasn't stopped the impact on society.

Drugs cause crime and are passed on to children BECAUSE they have been criminalised.

You are exacerbating the situation by trying to restrict it.

Up to the early '60s your doctor could prescribe heroin. There WERE a small number of addicts - mainly those who had become hooked via pain relief from Morphine, but NO criminals, no peddlers, and no crime. There was no market for it. The addicts - given a regular supply - were able to lead normal non-chaotic lives. For some reason, the UK was persuaded to follow the USA's policy and Bingo! It was "show open" for the illegal drugs trade which has flourished ever since and continues to do so. Those behind it are no doubt very grateful for your support

When you're in a hole DD, its time to stop digging. I am delighted that wiser counsels are now being heard although it'll be some time before the Daily Mail readership can be persuaded to think it through. Hopefully we'll do what Portugal has done and decriminalised it entirely.

Drugs problems in this country date way back when, remember the opium dens from Victorian days, it was the experience of what this did to society that brought about the control of drugs.

Prescription drugs are a completely different issue from abuse of illegal drugs, its like linking knife crime to surgery!

Discrimination didn't work in Holland, it created an unholy mess.

Britain has cheap illegal drugs, cheaper than most other developed nations, if they are legalised the price will rise, those that can't afford them now most certainly will not be able to afford them any better if they are legalised.

Portugal has not decriminalised drugs, they haven't even decriminalised drugs for personal use, it is still an offence but it does not fetch a jail term however you are summonsed, you are fined and you have a very formal assessment procedure you have to go through with a social worker, a psychiatrist and an attorney.

The sale of drugs ("dealing") in Portugal is illegal and can fetch a prison sentence.

So where does the "Hopefully we'll do what Portugal has done and decriminalised it entirely." come from? I guess it was a highly misleading article in the lying media.

The UK has already virtually ignored drugs for personal use for many years, to all intent and purposes it has been decriminalised, it is rare anyone is prosecuted for just possession in personal quantities unless it is in conjunction with another offence. It has not helped our problems one bit (whether or not it might work in other cultures)

I haven't said to clamp down on users, I have said clamp down on dealers. Price drugs out the market, its worked with cigarettes and carrier bags.

Albanian Mafia.

" The report said corruption among staff working at ports and airports was a "key vulnerability", because it made it easier for gangs to smuggle in drugs and bring in illegal immigrants."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40439802

Albania is a country waiting to join the EU.

Back to the original post, Merseyside Police have found eight private hire drivers that tested positive for cocaine in eight days.

Sounds about right, most of them DO drive like cokeheads.

And another today making it nine in nine days.

Dya know what, i saw a taxi driver down the dips earlier who was acting a bit dodgy. I was down there for a couple of hours hitting golf balls with a couple of wedges practicing my short game and saw a taxi driver pull up by the side of the dips and just sat there for about 20 minutes then as i was packing away and heading home via the pathway under the railway bridge to Sea Road he got out of his car and walked up the path to under the bridge by the barriers and then went to the right into the bushes, i thought he was suicidal and was looking for a way onto the railway tracks so was preparing to make a call to 999 amd have a chat with him but instead he rummaged in the bushes and pulled out a fairly clean looking carrier bag with what looked like a brown jiffy bag in it, stashed it in his coat and went back toward the dips and presumably to his car.

Now i'm not going to categorically say that he was picking up drugs, but i don't think it could have been anything else... Other than money perhaps???

Would druggies and their providers be that trusting I wonder ? I imagined it would always be a one to one face to face livetime 'swop' so one half couldnt deceive the other half of the deal. . Does sound intriguing though.

Your honour,

I had a hard day and was just taking a break in my car when a train went past and I saw something thrown from a window. I thought it strange as it didn't appear to be a bit of rubbish. I thought I would keep an eye on things and see what happens. After a short while this dodgy looking guy came into the vicinity and was pretending to play golf (from his standard of play you could tell he wasn't a golfer),

I could tell this golfer was trying to get nearer but he seemed a bit wary of me so I thought I would help things along by picking up the package for him and handing it over. My thoughts were that if it was innocent he would graciously thank me, if it wasn't so innocent either he would do a runner or come and try and knock me out. There was a chance his wife or someone had accidentally taken something on the train he needed such as his car keys.

I picked up the bag and to my surprise the golfer didn't seem particularly concerned one way or the other, I though I would look stupid if I walked up to him now. So I thought I had better take the package to the police station, on the way there I remembered I hadn't eaten so I popped into Greggs for six sausage rolls. When I got back to my car the package had gone, I bet that dodgy golfer followed me and snatched it while my back was turned. I thought it would be silly going to the police station now so I just went home to share my sausage rolls with my pet skunk.

The next morning there was a knock on the door, it was the police and that is how I come to be here now.

Lol , yes that all sounds highly probably DD , I especially like the skunk part !

Maybe they had just gone in for a p or pooh and being a good taxi driver picked up after himself.....

At the bus stop and one of the barstewards from Delta drove through a puddle in the gutter, a big one, and got me. Got a load of abuse when I thanked him. He was going to the eateries across the road. Aggressive little git he was, good job I'm a KOS.

Report him to the Council. Had one the other day parked on double yellows outside a school causing absolute chaos in an already dangerous situation, unfortunately I forgot his number by the time I got back home.

Read about this on a social network, it apparently happened in Liverpool, driver asking passenger for directions, the driver was Asian and told the passenger he had only arrived in the country a month ago and was driving in place of his brother who had gone home to see his family, maybe made up I don't know it was one of a number of instances that people were complaining about, driver's not knowing the route or not matching the photo on their ID badge.

Since May, Merseyside Police have arrested 100 taxi drivers for drug and/or drink driving. This is way out of control. There are numerous other offences such as bald tyres, private hire responding to hails etc etc. Needs a very strict clampdown by the licensing authorities.

Some of the driving really is poor, Liscard is like taxi land,nearly every double yellow has a taxi parked on them, the taxi stand near the traffic lights by the Clareville pub is like wacky races when the lights change they cut right out in front of you, u turns, lane changes, fortunately we have always had decent drivers and most I've met are decent lads just earning a living, but recently there seems to be an element coming into the industry that are bringing it into disrepute, and they need sifting out.