Undercover cops betrayed by War on Drugs

'Joe' before his undercover steroids, and after, pictured
with his former undercover colleague 'Jessie', now his wife

More lives destroyed by the War on Drugs – this time an undercover cop who worked Kings Cross in the 1990s. Relatively unsupervised by his employers, 'Joe' took on the persona of a Lebanese kingpin, tasked to expose corrupt police who were in on the drug profits.

Joe pumped himself up on illegal steroids increasing his weight from 75 to 145 kilos. Now he has been abandoned by the Police Force, his kidneys have failed, and his body is starting to reject a transplanted kidney.

His younger brother, unaware that Joe was in fact a cop, emulated his big-time-in-the-Cross- image and ended up in jail for armed robbery.

It's all explained in a book by Clive Small and Tom Gilling, Betrayed, and in a piece by Michael Duffy in today's SMH.

Michael Duffy is one of the more enlightened writers on drugs, because he usually highlights the futility of prohibition, writing:

Does [Joe] think locking up some drug dealers made a difference? "No. They say there's a war on drugs but there's no such thing. The police take 200 kilos off the street and say they've made a big dent, but the next day you can buy drugs for the same price. It makes no difference. For every importation they catch, five more get in."

There you have it from the mouth of one who knows.