Forum Topic

Rampant Drug Dealings In Acton

There has been an alarming rise in drug dealings in Acton (especially South Acton Estate) since the beginning of summer which has led to a number of stabbings, robberies and gun shootings.There seems to be a corridor that stretches from Churchfield Road (Acton Central Station) to Langley Drive (South Acton Estate) where these drug dealers operate. I have informed the police about these blatant drug dealings but nothing has been done yet.It is not hard to spot drug dealers who stand around Crown St and surrounding estates for most of the day. They usually wear Nike sports clothing, hats and colourful garments. They've become so relaxed that they're selling class A drugs next to areas where children play (somebody got shot and stabbed near south Acton childrens play ground recently) - which should worry any local.Some of the local drug dealers have recently been released from jail and they continue to commit the same crimes. Why doesn't the police keep an eye on them? Why do the police feel like they are powerless to question them their illegal activities?This seems to be getting out of hand and could lead to worse situations. I urge anybody who sees suspicious drug activities to report to Sargeant Darren Gray on 020 8649 3574.Thanks for reading.

Abdi Hassan ● 5146d38 Comments

No different in central Ealing either - blatant dealing (and use) in Walpole park right behind the police station but they don't seem to notice that either.

Chris Martin ● 5146d

This is totally unacceptable and illegal - perhaps there is a need to target those who are buying the stuff - who are they?

Dee Cook ● 5145d

Isn't selling drugs a bigger crime than buying them?

Keith Iddon ● 5145d

It's the fault of the justice system.  If the police were any good at catching them, or seemed bothered to catch them, they they'd keep it more low key.If the courts gave out sentences that actually deterred them from dealing, they might think twice about doing it in the first place.If people know the police aren't going to catch them and even if they do get caught they won't get punished very much, they will continue to commit the crime.

Sarah Harris ● 5145d

........and if people did not want to buy the drugs, there would be no market and the dealers wouldn't have a job.So turn everything round and focus on those who are buying the stuff and give them heavy fines and a criminal record.Are these people middle class with reputations to worry about I wonder!  All front page of the tabliods stuff.

Dee Cook ● 5145d

It seems to be happening on the corner of woodhurst and Cumberland Road, I haven't seen it myself, but someone who lives opposite there said that it was obviously going on there on several occasion on Sunday.

Kevin Bell ● 5145d

Deafening silence from the local bobbies.  I understand they read this forum so perhaps they could comment?

Anne Brown ● 5145d

Friary Rd crack dealers on bicycles every day.

Mick Brady ● 5145d

Should it be the local cops who provide the responses? Perhaps they are too stretched. Should it not be that some of our senior officers should engage in the Press and tell us what they doing? We pay them a lot of money, but who knows if they exist let alone how they are improving policing in this Borough?Maybe the Editor would like to try and persuade them to write an occasional article. IMO the senior police have a duty to do this.

George Knox ● 5145d

I've been living here for three years now and it's definitely getting increased over the last six months, especially around the Poets Corner part. Cars pulling up all the time, guys on bikes circling around (which can be quite intimidating) . Really quite tedious now. Wish the police would just scoot around every so often. Really poor.

Andy Heeps ● 5145d

I am also fed up with the intimidating men cycling through Woodhurst Road. I also frequently see strange meet-ups between seedy looking men on corner of Woodhurst and Spencer Rd.

Zoe Archer ● 5145d

"Should it be the local cops who provide the responses? Perhaps they are too stretched."How can they be "too stretched" when the Ealing Borough team have a record number of officers?

Chris Martin ● 5145d

We had two cycling around Friary Road yesterday looking in cars and the way they spin on back wheels and ride on the pavement doing tricks is intimidating - felt it was a display of 'we can do as we please'.

Maria Pettit ● 5144d

You can tell where they hang out, they leave all their fast food and cans littered about - the railway bridge Goldsmith Avenue j/w St. Dunstans Avenue for instance.I still ask, who is buying the stuff?  It must be the residents who live in the area.

Dee Cook ● 5144d

Message from Superintendent Simon Message from Ealing Police: 'Police are currently investigating a number of reports of drug related activity in the Acton area.The local Safer Neighbourhoods Teams are carrying out operations and are involved in different activities with partner agencies to disrupt organised criminal activity and drugs networks. In order to deal with drugs and other crime issues,  patrols are concentrated in and around known hotspots. The local teams alongside other specialist teams have plans in place to tackle this.If you have any information please contact your local Safer Neighbourhoods Team via the website http://content.met.police.uk/Borough/Ealing.  Or alternatively in a non-emergency dial 101.  In an emergency dial 999.

Ealing Police ● 5144d

Are two separate problems being conflated here? Drug dealing is one but possibly boys on bikes (BOBs) in ChiswickW4 speak - who ride around looking for theft opportunities often from stuff left in cars, are another.Neither good - but I don't think it helps to confuse the two.The Churchfield Road site opposite Lavellis was sorted for a while but has looked dodgy again recently (drugs not BOBs)

Sara Nathan ● 5144d

Quite often the poor little urchins on bikes are not only eyeballing cars and houses but are running drug deals around so it is right to include them in any debate about drug dealing.

Keith Iddon ● 5143d

Superintendent Simon -  do you know who is buying the drugs.  Is it local residents?

Dee Cook ● 5143d

Who owns those flats above Londis, if thats where you are referring to Sara, surely it cant be coincidence or bad luck that this is happening in the same place.

Kevin Bell ● 5143d

For every street level drug dealer the police take off the streets there will be two or three just waiting to take their placeThe solution to the drug dealing problem is very well known and everyone who's studied the matter with an open mind is well aware of it. The problem is it's politically impossible to implement.The solution is legalisation and regulation just as we do with alcohol and tobacco. Allow the sale (in suitably licenced places, although I would say NOT in pubs) of most currently illegal drugs. The quality and purity could be regulated, leading to a dramatic drop in o/ds, infections and poisonings. Reasonable tax could be levied, bringing in income. The price would fall, making black market supply less attractive to criminals and leading to less petty crime by users looking to finance their next fix. Police resources would be freed up to concentrate on other areas of crime. And it probably wouldn't lead to a significant increase in consumption.

Roy Gillett ● 5143d

I don't see how you can assume it wouldn't lead to more consumption or what is more significant kids experimenting with drugs because they are perceived as legal and 'safe'.Heroin can never be safe.The same debate applies to legalising prostitution.Morality aside,would you like one of your kids to become a prostitute,with all the potential dangers and self loathing/mental health problems that could go with it,because it was legal and regulated?We could never know if more people would become drug dependant or not until it was too late for them if drugs were to be legalised .

Keith Iddon ● 5143d

Dee, I think you need to get into the real world. Your approach has no chance of making the slightest bit of difference in todays current economic climate, the police are already stretched to breaking point as it is with all the cutbacks. For every dealer there will be many more customers, how do you think the police are going to have the time and resources chasing after joe public with his small purchase.

Kevin Bell ● 5143d

Presumably the customers are local residents, their parents or their children. 

Philippa Bond ● 5143d

Kevin, I am in the real world I was born in Shepherds Bush!  If this crime is rampant in Acton then joe public are not making 'small' purchases, he/she are making 'large' purchases - and these people are possibly your neighbours, who may have children.Education, education, education*(in our schools) and large fines for those found in possession would help.  Drug taking leads on to other much bigger crimes, ie, murder, rape, robbery.  The police would be wise to begin their work at the bottom end of the scale of crime in order to try and prevent the serious crime at the top end. Then perhaps they would not be 'stretched to breaking point'.

Dee Cook ● 5143d

Singapore and Thailand have an answer for drug dealers and peddlers.  It's a pity we can't adopt it in this country.

Nicola Howard ● 5143d

Until you find out it is your parents, your friends, your children

Philippa Bond ● 5143d

Roy: "And it probably wouldn't lead to a significant increase in consumption."  Really?  Probably?  As a parent, I am not willing to take that chance.  It is obvious, is it not, that making something legal condones it and makes it more accessible and acceptable?  Making it legal just shifts the problem and probably makes it bigger.In my psychotherapy practice I see too many people who cross all kinds of boundaries when they take illegal drugs.  The question we need to ask at a higher level is "why do so many people feel the need to change their mood or emotional state or a regular basis?"  However, that's a big question and the immediate problem is the current supply and taking of drugs.  It's easier and less labour intensive to catch the supplier, I would think, than the taker.  Ironically, and coincidentally, I know many people who would partake of recreational drugs and bemoan/slate drug dealing.  Double standards.  If you have a drug dealer on your street corner and you don't like it, ask yourself how many times you've bought from a dealer yourself!  Hypocrite?  I have to laugh!  Would putting the drug behind a shop counter make you feel better?I have emailed the Police (Safer Neighbourhood Team) about drug dealing recently and haven't had a reply.  If our Government downgrade stuff....what's the message?

Angela White ● 5143d

ps Equally I know of parents who dabble/partake and who, heaven forbid, wouldn't want their children doing so! Why?

Angela White ● 5143d

I agree with you Angela - there's good evidence to show that decriminalising actually increases consumption - this was the case when cannabis was downgraded in the UK (and resulted in it recently being upgraded). Go to the Netherlands or Pakistan and there's plenty of proof that ready availability of drugs (legally or semi-legally) increases consumption and also provides an escalator to harder drugs (with the associated crime that produces). That's why the liberal Dutch are now closing coffee shop and  restricting supply - having cited the wide availability of low strength cannabis leading to a long term adoption of stronger strains and also a significant rise in the number of heroin addicts as drug takers switch to harder drugs).It's also the reason that there are now 1/2m heroin addicts in Karachi - where around 1 in 12 adults of working age are now addicted.All we would gain from decriminalising drugs is more drug driving offences and no change in crime - dealers would simply offer stronger deals for the same cost. Anyone who has had the misfortune to live near a dealer will know how this works in practice - the frequency and severity of crime increases markedly over time.

Chris Martin ● 5143d

To be honest I wouldn't be too worried about about an overall increase in consumption amongst adultsPeople cross all kinds of boundaries when they take LEGAL drugs. See any A&E department after chucking out time.Prohibition of narcotics to reduce consumption has FAILED. Just like it always has and always will. People DO want to get off their faces occasionally and will always find a way to do it.But the course I was advocating wasn't aimed at doing anything AT ALL about drug consumption. It was aimed at addressing street level drug dealing. Legalisation would get the dealers off the streets because they would have no market. That would eliminate a lot of the petty crime that goes along with it. And your kids would be safer for that. Because it would be MUCH easier to deter sales to minors when the outlets are open and regulated. >>If you have a drug dealer on your street corner and you don't like it, ask yourself how many times you've bought from a dealer yourself!  Hypocrite?  I have to laugh!  Would putting the drug behind a shop counter make you feel better?

Roy Gillett ● 5143d

No Roy, I wasn't addressing you personally!  However, if the coat does fit......Did you read Martin's post?

Angela White ● 5143d

Chris Martin's post, even!

Angela White ● 5143d

The SN Police Team have been in touch with me.  They've said:If you see any dealing, or suspected dealing, call 999 whilst it's happening.  If you wish to report drug dealing that's not in the moment, etc, dial 101. 

Angela White ● 5143d

There are often cars (usually BMW / Audi) parked at the Vyner Road junction with Perryn Road.  Engines running, a couple of youths inside, fast food containers dumped on the pavement.Very suspicious but whether it's related to the hypodermics seen discarded nearby, who knows.  I don't know what drug dealing looks like but I guess the police do. The needles were there for days, even after I reported to Ealing street cleaning.

N Roberts ● 5143d

For those who feel the Police are not doing a good enough job.http://www.metpolicecareers.co.uk/specials/

Peter Preston ● 5143d

The flats above the Londis block were some sort of housing association I think last time there was a raid/conviction about a year ago. I thought the local police were on top of it then but people have moved on so maybe It's not surveyed as much now.At one point you could sit on tHe bench outside Londis and literally count the transactions. I don't think it's unite as bad as that now.

Sara Nathan ● 5143d

Why aren't you saying the same about alcohol?It has just as bad if not worse affects on society, it being legal increases consumption, hurts our bodies and people cross the line under the influence regularly.Its just as bad, yet you probably still drink it.

Jay Bower ● 5138d

Yes Jay, alcohol being legal does increase consumption, and that's the point of the argument.  We can't undo the status of alcohol, I wouldn't think for one moment and we mustn't make the same mistake with drugs.  Why do users take this argument?  It's a lame one.

Angela White ● 5137d