Police could get powers to go through drug dealers’ phones to text users

It's all part of the government's 'all-out war' on drugs.

Police may soon be able to use drug dealers’ phones to text and message their clients in a new bid to crack down on middle-class users.

The new powers are part of a 10-year strategy to tackle drug-related offences in what is being billed as an ‘all out war’ and the ‘biggest intervention in a generation’.

The plan is set to be unveiled in the Commons this week but will include a raft of measures designed to target people at different levels of the drugs trade.

So-called ‘lifestyle’ users of drugs like cocaine could see their passports taken off them and driving licences confiscated.

And police could be handed powers to go through dealers’ phones to text clients warning them about drug use in an attempt to spook them.

The measure is designed to remove the feeling of anonymity people have when purchasing illegal drugs by making them aware the police know what is going on.

A campaign aiming to change people’s behaviour will also be trialled at universities to try and discourage drug misuse at an early stage.

As well as targeting ‘middle-class’ users the plan also aims to ‘come down hard’ on the gangsters peddling unlawful narcotics and ‘making people’s lives hell’.

Ministers are set to announce a focus on cutting off the supply of class A drugs by city-based crime rings to surrounding areas – known as county lines operations.

The aggressive campaign is set to commit to dismantling more than 2,000 county lines over the next three years, by carrying out thousands of arrests and pledging an investment of £700 million.

There is also expected to be an expansion of drug testing on arrest, with police encouraged to direct people who test positive towards treatment or other relevant interventions.

This could include attendance at drug awareness courses with criminal sanctions for those who continue to use.

Judges will be given the power to order offenders who are serving community sentences for drug-related crimes to be tested, with the prospect of jail if tests come back positive.

Speaking ahead of the publication of the plan, Boris Johnson said the government was ‘absolutely determined to fight’ the ‘disgusting’ drugs trade.

‘I take the view that it is a long time really since you heard a government say that drugs – Class A drugs – are bad and bad for society, bad for opportunity, bad for kids growing up in this country,’ he said.

The Conservative Party leader was speaking after joining police in Liverpool for morning raids in the Kirkdale and Anfield areas of the city as part of an investigation into county lines dealing.

Two people – a 34-year-old woman and a 27-year-old man – were arrested and taken to police stations in Merseyside for questioning following the execution of two warrants, police confirmed.

The prime minister said the government was ‘not going to sit idly by’ while so-called ‘lifestyle users’ indulge in drug-taking, arguing that ‘all demand is helping to create the problem’.

Mr Johnson’s comments come after policing minister Kit Malthouse said he would be ‘surprised’ if there were not users of unlawful drugs in Parliament after a newspaper investigation found traces of cocaine in numerous sites.

‘There are obviously several thousand people who work on the estate and I would be surprised if there weren’t some lifestyle users of drugs amongst them,’ he told Sky News.

The government’s new strategy has come under criticism by drug reform campaigners who have criticised the UK government for going ‘backwards’ by embracing a criminal sanction-led approach as opposed to more progressive approaches.

Niamh Eastwood, executive director of think-tank Release, told The Guardian: ‘While increased funding for drug treatment is welcomed, the focus on more punitive sentences for people who supply drugs is a continuation of a tired tough-on-drugs narrative, one that we have had in the UK for decades.

‘This failed policy will do little to address the high rates of drug-related deaths, which over the last decade have increased year on year, with some of the highest rates in Europe.’

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the drug problem had ‘got a lot worse’ over the past decade and accused the Tories of taking ‘millions and millions’ of pounds out of the systems for tackling drug use and drug-related crime.

‘I want to see the strategy, I want the Prime Minister to take responsibility for the money that’s been taken out of criminal justice in the last 10 years that’s caused many of these problems,’ said the former director of public prosecutions.

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