A major crackdown to dismantle ‘county lines’ drugs gangs in Norfolk has been pledged with thousands more arrests.
Boris Johnson vowed to "come down hard on the gangsters who are making hell of people's lives" as part of the government’s new 10-year drugs strategy, saying he was "absolutely determined to fight drugs".
Police will get millions in extra funding to fight London-based gangs that exploit young people to traffic drugs to areas like Norfolk.
It will build on Operation Orochi which has seen Norfolk and the Met Police sharing intelligence on drugs gangs and has seen 52 ‘county lines’ closed and 77 people being charged.
It has led to 45 convictions with sentences totalling more than 177 years.
A number of high profile knife crimes including the killing of David Lawal in Thetford and multiple stabbings in Norwich and have been linked to county lines drugs gangs.
The prime minister said the strategy would also "come down tougher" on so-called lifestyle drug users with measures to take away passports or drivers' licences of those convicted.
Other measures include police handed powers to go through drug dealers’ phones and contact clients with warnings about drug use.
The £300m gang crackdown will be joined by the "largest ever investment in treatment and recovery", the government said.
The prime minister said he wanted to break the cycle of arresting culprits "time after time" and returning them to prison "again and again" for being involved in drug-related crime, by offering the "humane" option of rehabilitation.
The strategy will expand drug testing on arrest, with police encouraged to direct drug users towards treatment or other relevant interventions.
Judges will also be given the power to order drug tests on offenders serving community sentences for drugs-related crimes, with the prospect of jail if they test positive.
The Matthew Project, which works with people affected by substance misuse in Norwich, said the strategy looked like a “very ‘enforcement’ focused approach”.
Chief executive Andy Sexton said: “We would welcome any emphasis on increasing support for people in recovery to stop relapse and reoffending."
Lester Morse, director of East Coast Recovery in Lowestoft, said the promised extra investment followed funding cutbacks over the past decade that had seen its treatment centre reduced from 47 to 16 beds.
“The answer has always been really good interventions but it takes a lot of treatment to treat someone with addiction and services have been decimated,” he said.
“It is going to take us years to build them up again so it is difficult for me to be happy about it because we had a wonderful service that was destroyed.”
Dame Carol Black, who conducted an independent review of drugs for the government, said greater change would be achieved investing in recovery than tackling criminal activity.
"Drug dealers are very, very good at just moving their operation, of doing different things, they're good businessmen,” she said.
“So I think if you really want to get to grips with drugs and crime, you've got to be able to offer people high quality treatment and recovery.
"We know from research that that stops criminal activity. We know that if it's high quality treatment, people stay in it and do better. And we have at the moment a broken service."
Also included in its strategy is expansion of Project Adder, which has been trialled by Norfolk Police with local authorities and NHS services focusing on treating addicts in order to combat demand for drugs.
It has led to significant success, particularly in parts of Norwich and Great Yarmouth previously blighted by drugs and associated gang violence.
“Diverting drug users into recovery and treatment will reduce demand for drugs and the criminal activity associated with it in the greater Norwich area,” said a spokesman.
“Being part of this pilot project allows us to be at the forefront of developing a new approach to tackling drug related deaths, the level of drug related offending and the prevalence of drug use in Norfolk.”
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