UK cops report that they have learned how to shut down the gangs that sell cocaine and heroin outside cities.

I congratulate them, because cocaine and heroin are dangerous, but this focus on the punitive approach can't ever stop the sale of those drugs. As the article recognizes, someone else will always show up to sell them.

What will make those drugs nearly disappear is to adopt a more intelligent approach — the one that works in the Netherlands and in Portugal.

This approach is for the national medical system to let addicts register, then give them drugs of reliable purity to use, and safe places to use them. When the main buyers are not buying from private sellers, most of the market will disappear, and so will the private selling.