DISC News Spot - Updated 19/11/08

Know The Score
 When it comes to illegal drugs, how do cops learn the difference between moggies, burgers and boff? Claire Haynes attends a training session for student officers that gives them a different perspective on young people and substance abuse How does the inhaling of solvents affect you? Do all drug users start by abusing alcohol? Is it a myth that if you take heroin once you immediately become addicted? These are some of the questions student police officers ask young people who are now visiting Durham Constabulary headquarters to train them about why people use drugs.

The half-day session takes place during week six of student officers' training. It aims to challenge their stereotypes about drug users, get them thinking about some of the reasons young people take drugs, teach them 'street' names for different substances and answer their questions about drug use. Police Review visited Durham to take part in a lesson with 18 student officers from Durham and Northumbria Police to find out how the training works.

Learning the lingo The lesson is delivered by Durham-based charity Developing Initiatives Supporting Communities (DISC). It runs a project called Out There, which educates young people, with the aim that they about drug and alcohol issues, so they can pass on information about their dangers to their friends.

After going through a DISC education course, some of the young people, who have either used drugs or have been in close relationships with users, volunteer to work with the charity's staff in training student police officers about drugs. When Police Review visited Durham Constabulary headquarters, three youngsters were assisting Andrea Dixon, manager of Out There, in educating the officers. Ms Dixon says she wants student officers to think about the reasons why youths may be hanging out on the streets or using drugs.

She says: 'I need them to see past the group of young people standing on the streets. It is about looking at the social implications for young people. The media have given young people a poor reputation, so elderly people are scared to go past gangs of kids. I want to teach [officers] to interact with young people.'

DISC has been involved in training police officers since 2005 when Northumbria Police and Durham Constabulary teamed up to train their officers as part of the Initial Police Learning and Development Programme (IPLDP) system. The two forces formed the North East Centre for Policing Skills, using former Centrex classrooms at Durham headquarters and trainers from both forces (PR, 12 January 2007).

Sgt Jane Hinde, a student officer training course co-ordinator from Northumbria Police, says the training challenges student officers about what stereotypes they hold. She adds: 'Student officers get up-to-date information and drug street names and prices, so they sound more informed. That leads to police officers looking at young people as individuals rather than as an alcoholic or heroin addict. 'It is about breaking police culture because it is easy to adopt the culture of your shift without really thinking about it.' This means that student officers should not just follow the opinions of their colleagues, but make up their own minds about those who use drugs and the reasons they do it.

Ch Insp Colin Green, of Northumbria Police and manager of the North East Centre for Policing Skills, says DISC training provides a safe environment for officers to ask questions. 'It is important that student officers have the full knowledge of drugs and awareness of the problems drug users, particularly youngsters, have,' he says. Ch Insp Green adds that officers need to learn about the different agencies that offer support to drug users. 'Officers need the ability to look at various agencies that can try to prevent the horrendous cycle of drug abuse and crime.'

Dealing with drugs The training session begins with student officers being given minimal information about eight different drug users before they are asked to give their opinions on why they are taking drugs and how to deal with them. The aim of the exercise is to show how easy it is to make assumptions about people from limited information available. Ms Dixon tells the class: 'Unfortunately, as an officer, you will have to make decisions with very little information. I want you to start thinking about how a young person would get to the stage of sitting in a bus stop sniffing solvents.'

One of the drug users whom officers were asked to discuss was a 13-year-old boy who was taking azidothymidine (AZT, a type of anti-retroviral drug). Some officers thought it sounded like a drug used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, but they were later told AZT was used to treat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which the teenager contracted through a blood transfusion. Student officers also take part in an exercise in which they have to match street names to official drug names. They are given around 50 names for 12 drugs and asked to match them up. While some slang is well known, such as 'charlie', 'smack' and 'weed', other names have the students stumped until the young volunteers help them to match 'moggies' with tranquilizers, 'boff' with solvents and 'burgers' with ecstasy.

Ms Dixon says people are often at risk of overdosing on ecstasy accidentally because they get used to taking several pills to get their desired effect. But she explains the pills can have vastly different amounts of MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), which produces the euphoria effect. She says in a test conducted on seven different tablets that all looked the same, the amount of MDMA contained in each one varied hugely. While one contained 240g of MDMA, another had only 30g. Ms Dixon says young people could get used to taking several of the weaker pills at one time, but if they come across pills with high levels of MDMA and take a few, it could be fatal. She says two of the tablets tested were not even ecstasy, one was ephedrine (an amphetamine-type substance) and another was ketamine (originally developed as an anaesthetic).

Amy, 19, who did not want her full name revealed, is one of the DISC volunteers. She says she used to hate police officers after she ran away from a violent home five years ago, only for police officers to return her there, despite her pleas, after failing to check records of the address with the force. If they had, the officers would have seen a domestic violence warning on the address. She recounts the story to the student officers as part of the training day and many are shocked at what happened to her.

Ms Dixon asks the students how they would respond if they came across a 15-year-old boy in the street who was drunk and scared to be taken home. She says: 'Sometimes it is about police officers coming to the door, not the offence, [which gets youths in trouble with their parents]. The parents may have a lot to hide and do not want police officers around. In some cases, kids have been assaulted and you do not want to be investigating a domestic violence [on the child] incident the next day.'

Teenage level Amy says the way police officers are now trained gives them a different perspective on young people, but she also wishes more experienced officers could go through this kind of training. She is now also very vocal about educating people about drugs. Once while she was in a nightclub with friends, she saw someone putting a substance in another person's drink and grabbed the DJ's microphone to tell the entire club to be careful. During the training, Sgt Hinde asks Amy if police officers ever ask young people why or how they got into using drugs and she says no. Sgt Hinde also asks how police officers could make interaction with young people less confrontational and more productive. Amy says: 'I know my friends get gobby with police officers. So it is best to take [individuals] aside and have a one-to-one. Also take your hat off - it is seen as authority - and you will get more co-operation from young people.'

Student officers also get the chance to ask young people questions.

One asks how people start using drugs, and if it always starts with abusing alcohol first. Amy replies that every person is different; some people can go straight onto heroin, she says, while others start smoking cannabis and never use anything else.

Another student officer asks why solvent abuse was becoming less popular and if it was because other drugs are more readily available, while another officer wants to know what the effects of solvents are if you take them. Claire Anderson, a DISC project worker, replies that solvents are both a depressant and a hallucinogenic, but some users say it makes the heart race and distorts vision. She warns officers to think twice about chasing after people who have been using solvents as there is a risk to their hearts if they over-exert themselves while on the drug.

One officer asks if it was a myth that if you take heroin once you become addicted. Ms Dixon says: 'There are no drugs like that. You have to build up addiction. Regular use on a frequent basis will get you dependent.' Miss Anderson says a lot of people are violently ill the first time they take it.

Officers are also shown what drugs look like using replica substances and drug paraphernalia including a pipe and bong (a water-pipe used to smoke cannabis) made by the volunteers. Ms Dixon shows them bags and foil commonly used to carry heroin and warns them it could be difficult to find small packages during a search.

Good service Ms Dixon tells the class all of them need to learn what drug services are available in the areas they are posted in so they can refer people to them when necessary. She adds: 'I have been in a police station when a lad was brought in for a drug-related incident. The officers obviously liked him. The ironic thing was a police officer said to him: "This cannot go on. You are getting into more and more trouble for the drug use." The boy agreed. 'There was a poster for a drug treatment on the wall. If the officer had looked up and called the number on the poster, it could have been a turning point for the lad.'

Student officers' view What do the student officers think of their half a day of drugs training? PC Nathan McDougal, from Northumbria Police, says: 'There are a lot of things I found out today that I did not know before. I think it is handy to have the volunteers who have been through it. There are a lot of younger cops who have not mixed in those circles so they do not have a clue about drugs.'

PC David Hutchinson, also from Northumbria Police, says he did not realise there were so many different street names for drugs. 'The stuff we are learning today we could be teaching other people,' he adds.

At the end of the lesson Andrea Dixon, manager of the Out There project, which comes into the force to educate student officers on drugs, has a solemn message for the group. She says: 'I have worked with people who have had fantastic jobs and ended up on drugs. Anyone can be affected by drugs and alcohol.'

Updated 19/11/08