A heroin dealer was caught in Portslade with a stash worth about £5,000 after someone tipped off police.
Jason Goodman, 43, was found sat in a Skoda Fabia car, in Bush Farm Drive, where he had been reported to be using drugs.
He has since appeared at Brighton Magistrates’ Court where he admitted having heroin with intent to supply.
The magistrates bailed to him to appear before a crown court judge for sentence.
Sussex Police said that when officers searched Goodman’s car they found his stash of heroin.
PC Georgina Edge, who responded to the call-out with her colleague PC Nicholas Simmons, praised the person who alerted police.
She said: “Thanks to a concerned member of the public, who saw Goodman smoking heroin in his car, we were able to intervene.
“It allowed us to take a large amount of heroin out of circulation and also prevent the offender from drug driving.”
“It allowed us to take a large amount of heroin out of circulation and also prevent the offender from drug driving.”
A large amount. Not like the police to over estimate a bust. They caught a street urchin, that is all. The vast majority of police arrests, and solved crimes, revolve around busting low level users and dealers rather then those in charge of the black market.
Going by the stated price on drug scope* this person was caught with just over 4 ounces of heroin, I have a feeling that this minor disturbance to the supply network would have caused little or no issue to the end users. I’d even hazard a guess that this person was only dealing heroin to supplement their own habit and to avoid running up a debt with dealers. The person described in this article needs rehabilitation that prison can’t offer, isn’t about time we followed Portugal’s response to the war on drugs and replicated a system of care rather than incarceration. It has reduced drug use and drug related deaths substantially over the last 10 years it has been running, and even has the sceptics of the system singing its praises now.
We need progression, not the continuation of antiquated punitive systems because it wins public approval. The need to base drug policy on evidence rather then opinion is heightened beyond belief in these austere times.
*http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/faqs/faqpages/how-much-do-drugs-cost