I read this after hearing the author interviewed on a podcast so I was aware of some of the stories and the thrust of the book but I actually stayed up until two or three and finished it in one evening. We would scratch the surface of a murder and almost invariably find a turf war between dealers, or a gang protecting their supply network. But after years on the streets, spending time with the vulnerable users at the bottom of the chain, Neil began to question the seemingly futile war he was risking both his life and sanity for.

The scary part is the two parallel worlds that he portrays and how on going to a town he managed to pick out the people to contact and within a couple of introductions he was face to face with some of the most dangerous people at loose in the country. At some point they will wire up their agent so he can record some transaction, thus implicating the dealers. Since then he has left the police and now campaigns with LEAP UK to replace drug prohibition with a regulated market, which would take control (and money) from the criminal gangs and give it to the state, and allow drug policy to be an issue of health rather than crime. They will gang-rape your girlfriend if you default on a debt or you could find yourself on crutches for the rest of your life after having acid poured on your knees. Then after some time, they ask the small street addicts to introduce them to their dealers - the people with the real power, who are making money from drugs.Admittedly, this is not my usual Saturday night read, but this was recommended by a colleague and I found I really enjoyed it. When Neil left the police and pursued a life of changing the course of the fight against drugs, I was riveted and it is pure proven logic. S. criminals fighting in Iraq for a decade first believed it would be easy, like Putin rightly said "it should have been done carefully from inside, not carelessly from outside". They way he always remembered that addicts and people caught up in drug use or dealing are often the victims and they needed help, support and the protection of the police instead of being collateral damage was what fascinated me the most. This book is a very interesting read if you are interested in the casualties of 'The War On Drugs' or how drug dealers and criminals operate in general.

Despite the seriousness of the story, there are some humorous passages that will mitigate the heartache you can feel toward some of the individuals described. Everyone shrugs it off – with so much money in the drugs game, corruption is part and parcel of the whole deal. The irony of officers locking up drug lords but taking cocaine themselves; the small time addicts who serve similar sentences to ruthless crime bosses, the sad reality that as you take out one gang, another instantly replaces them; the list goes on and in the end, he certainly makes a compelling case.K. Made up exclusively of law enforcement figures, LEAP campaigns for an end to the drug war, and for drug policy to be based on evidence. He may well be right as it's the only one I have read, but it is a deeply disturbing insight into the murky world of drugs in this country.

The author ultimately leaves the police force and joins organisations like LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) that think that the only way to win the war is by removing the financial rewards (legalising drugs).In response, the government convened a panel of experts, and took the extraordinary brave step of resolving to actually follow the advice they were given. It's hard to believe that Neil Woods actually experienced all the situations he discusses - you imagine for it to be falling straight out of a gangster movie scene, or for Leonardo DeCaprio to walk in like i'm watching THE DEPARTED. Overall an outstanding book for me and I'd like to thank him for his honesty and strength in writing this. Essentially, after dedicating his life to putting away drug lords and fighting what he believed was a “good war”, he now believes the only way to make a difference, to really win the war on drugs, is to decriminalise the trade. His story unveils the victims of the 'Drug War' in the form of the down and out drug users who are at the bottom of the hierarchy.