Unintended Consequences of Drug Use, Laws, Policy and Policing Practices: LSD and Operation Julie

Turn On Tune In Drop Out and Get Arrested


WillonaSaturday

In keeping with the theme of drug related incidents with unexpected consequences I would submit the case of Operation Julie as a classic of its kind in more ways than one.

Operation Julie was the codename given by the police to their efforts to curtail the manufacture and distribution of LSD in the 1970s – an enterprise which, though undeniably criminal, was organised by an unlikely grouping of highly educated and well connected individuals who saw themselves not so much as criminals but, as one of the gang described, as ‘psychic guerrillas’ who genuinely believed that the world would be a better place the more people took LSD thereby expanding their consciousness. An important aspect of such an ideal was that the quality of their product was not to be compromised in the interests of increased profits. Amongst their number were university graduates (still something of a rarity in those days) and the son of an RAF squadron leader and between them they had just one conviction (for theft and false pretences). The leader of this gang of bright young things first became aware of Operation Julie when he discovered his front door being given a serious pounding and on unbolting and opening the door he was obliged to take evasive action from the swinging sledgehammer being wielded by an enthusiastic plain clothes police officer: ‘I suppose you’ve come about the TV licence’ was the initial inquiry levelled at the raiding party!

Operation Julie netted some six million LSD trips and effectively eliminated the entire supply of the drug, but not without some unintended consequences. At the London end, the operation involving a police raid on a manufacturing laboratory where a spillage caused a carpet to become saturated with LSD, which in turn led to three of the raiding party inadvertently ingesting some of the drug and their subsequent statements shed some light on the events that followed. After the raid some of the officers went to a nearby pub to celebrate - by which time the hallucinogenic properties of LSD began to have some effect: one of the team thought his pint had become to heavy to lift, while another became fascinated with the foam on the top of his glass and the third simply hid behind a pillar. On leaving the pub they found themselves incapable of reversing their car out of the car park and they decided to walk back to the laboratory pointing out to one another as one of the officers later put it, ‘the thousand mysteries of the south-western suburbs’. They were eventually found collapsed with laughter watching Jesus of Nazareth on TV and were duly taken to Kingston hospital where, readers will be pleased to learn, they were ultimately found to be none the worse for their experience!

In policing terms, above episode notwithstanding, Operation Julie was a spectacular success and, at the time, the largest of its kind in Europe.

The gang of psychic guerrillas received jail sentences totalling 124 years and on release in the 1980s, suitably chastened, they pursued more conventional careers – one even became a police surgeon. However, a particularly unforeseen and unfortunate consequence of such success would ultimately emerge. With LSD no longer available many of the drug’s aficionados turned to alternative means with which to get wasted and for many that would be barbiturates, not only a nasty drug but an extremely dangerous one too. At the height of their popularity in the 1970s barbiturates were claiming some 2000 lives a year as well as many amputations following botched attempts to inject the drug. For all the sensationalist moral panics directed at LSD – almost all of which had no basis in fact – the harm caused by that drug was a drop in the ocean compared to the catalogue of damage resulting from barbiturate use. Furthermore, when LSD eventually resurfaced it was in the hands of people with far less scruples than the targets of Operation Julie and would mostly be a mixture of amphetamine and substances such as strychnine and belladonna.

Operation Julie thus provides a salutary tale of unintended consequences and while there are many who would love to see all traces of illicit drugs removed from the streets of Britain, they would do well to consider the sort of mayhem that such an unlikely outcome could well precipitate.



Will Scarlet