the DRUGS debate

DUBLIN COMMUNITIES ORGANISE

The heroin epidemic in Dublin is causing major 
problems for addicts and for the communities where 
they live.   Oddly enough you would not get any 
inkling of this crisis from the bourgeois press.   That is 
because the epidemic and its effects are confined to the 
inner city and the working class suburbs like Ballymun, 
Tallaght, Clondalkin and Blanchardstown.   The 
politicians and the powers that be don't give a damn 
about the people who live in these communities or 
about the problems they face.   So, starting last summer, 
these communities began to organise their own 
response to the drugs crisis.

ICON, the Inner City Organisations Network, based on 
the northside, took an initiative.  It started a series of 
meetings, open to the community, in the North Star 
Hotel to discuss ways to tackle the problem.  These 
meetings were well attended by local people who talked 
about their experiences with sons and daughters, 
brothers and sisters and partners who are addicts and 
who can't get on to the treatment programmes because 
the waiting lists are so long.  

There are now upwards of five hundred addicts waiting 
to get on methadone treatment programmes in Dublin.  
Some of these are in their early teens.  Some are very 
sick with the HIV virus and even Aids.  Yet the main 
response of the government announced in the summer 
was a law and order one concentrated on security and 
policing.  These kinds of responses have been tried in 
practically every country experiencing the same drugs 
crisis without success.

ICON soon saw the need to spread out the campaign to 
other communities.  A series of city wide meetings 
were held in Liberty Hall which were attended by 
people from the Liberties, Blanchardstown, Tallaght, 
Ballymun and other areas.  A series of demands were 
drawn up and sub-groups set up to deal with the 
different aspects of the problem.  A big increase in the 
availability of treatment for addicts both in locally based 
clinics, under community control, and from local G.Ps 
are central demands.   

Other issues are the lack of methadone maintenance 
programmes in the prisons, the lack of success by the 
police in catching the big dealers, and the desperate 
social and economic conditions in the communities 
which cause the drug addiction in the first place.   

Unlike the community response in the 1980s, there has 
been little enthusiasm for a return to the tactics of the 
Concerned Parents Against Drugs.  CPAD had taken a 
direct action approach to dealers and those suspected of 
dealing, and forced them out of the communities.  
Although some people within the campaign do still 
favour this approach, most don't because of the totally 
changed situation on the ground now.  Now most 
families involved in the campaign have a close relative 
who is an addict, they may even have a close relative 
who has died at a young age from a drug related illness.  
Many addicts are also small time dealers in order to 
support their habit.  

The drug problem is so closely intertwined with the 
fabric of the community now ,especially in the inner 
city areas, that it is no longer possible or desirable to 
adopt the tactics of CPAD because people would be 
targeting members of their own families.  Another 
reason is that there is now a clearer realisation that 
there is nothing to be gained by just pushing the 
problem and the addicts from one area to another.

There are other issues to be tackled too, such as the fact 
that methadone itself is highly addictive and some 
experts argue that it is better to prescribe heroin.   The 
whole issue of legalisation and decriminalisation of 
hard and soft drugs is also up for debate.  Resistance 
from communities to drug treatment clinics in their 
areas also has to be tackled head on.  On the other hand 
there are examples from Tallaght of working class 
communities getting together to set up their own 
treatment programmes with the support of one or two 
G.Ps when the Eastern Health Board refused to deal 
with the problem.  

 The reluctance of G.Ps to treat addicts is basically a 
financial one.  If the Dept. of Health would agree to pay 
them more to treat addicts, many more would willingly 
do so.   Strangely enough this is exactly the same line of 
argument they use about treating Travellers!

The state is not putting in the resources to tackle the 
problem in any effective way.   Their response is 
primarily a policing one.   As long as the heroin 
problem stays in the working class communities - 
where it creates havoc with people lives - the state will 
not bother to respond in a serious manner unless it is 
forced to do so.   This is what the ICON led campaign 
has been set up to do.  It has the direct support and 
involvement of local people from working class 
communities and is democratically run.  It remains to 
be seen if it can be effective against the indifference and 
self-interest of the ruling class.

Patricia McCarthy

"Direct Action Against Drugs"
Murder and Thuggery

MEN SHOT DEAD, many more beaten up.  Attacks in 
Armagh, Belfast, Derry, Dublin, Dundalk and Kerry.  In 
most cases the reason given was that the people being 
punished were ecstasy dealers.  The murders in the six 
counties were claimed by Direct Action Against Drugs.  
This organisation does not exist in any real sense, it is 
widely believed to be nothing more than a cover name 
for the IRA.  That is why the Sinn Fein "does not 
condone" the killings but "will not condemn" them 
either.

Ecstasy use, like using any drug , is not to be encouraged.  
It is dangerous.  But there has been a lot of nonsense 
talked about 'E'.  It is a lot less likely to kill regular users 
than tobacco.  Just as many smoked dope in the 1970s, 
the 1990s generation takes ecstasy.  When asked by the 
'Sunday Tribune' (January 7th) why the IRA was not 
doing anything about tobacco or alcohol abuse Noel 
Sheridan, a Sinn Fein councillor in Armagh, replied 
that they were "not illegal".  So now you know, 
republicans' primary concern is for upholding the law!

The biggest - though not the only - risks come from 
cutting the drug with dangerous substances, from there 
being no way of knowing the strength of an illegal drug, 
and from club owners turning off taps to force 
dehydrated dancers to buy bottled water.

So why did the IRA start to kill alleged ecstasy dealer 
when they didn't kill heroin bosses like Larry Dunne 
and Ma Baker a decade ago?  The IRA may have a 
concern that overconfident criminals might eventually 
start dealing in hard drugs, or that "criminal gangs will 
dominate working class communities" ('AP/RN' 
editorial, January 11th).

More likely is that it was a way of demonstrating, to the 
Mitchell Commission and the British government, that 
an armed campaign can be resumed; that the IRA has 
not gone away.  By targeting alleged drug dealers at a 
time of great concern and a lot of media hype about 
drug abuse there was far less chance of a public outcry.  
More importantly, they can not be accused of breaking 
the ceasefire as they are not shooting RUC or soldiers.

The campaign of murders and beatings is authoritarian 
thuggery.  The IRA/DADD have no mandate to make 
the rules about drug use and abuse.  They certainly have 
no right to set themselves up as judge, jury and 
executioner.  What would the IRA's reaction be if the 
RUC went around executing alleged drug dealers?  Or 
have they already forgotten all they used to say about 
torture, non-jury courts and shoot-to-kill?

Editorial Collective


the DRUGS debate
bans or legalisation

SINCE THE DAYS of Concerned Parents Against Drugs 
(CPAD), the growth of the heroin problem in inner-city 
Dublin has largely gone without comment.  In the last 
few months, two factors have pushed it back into the 
spotlight - the government's declaration of a 'War on 
Drugs', and the emergence of the city-wide campaign 
against heroin which has been set up by Inner City 
Organisations Network.  In this article, we look at these 
campaigns, and how we, as anarchists, would deal with 
the problem of drug-abuse. 
 
Not War, But Containment
It's not a coincidence that the heroin problem is 
concentrated in communities with the highest rates of 
unemployment, worst housing, etc.  The inner-cities 
have been written-off already, it doesn't make political 
sense to spend money on people who are poor, 
unemployed, and probably don't vote anyway.  Besides 
which, everyone knows that as long as these areas 
remain run-down unemployment black-spots, people 
are going to keep turning to drugs, if only because 
there's nothing else to turn to.  
Instead, the government is concentrating on soft drugs, 
cannabis and Ecstasy mainly, because these are the drugs 
which have broken out of the ghetto.  Even the most 
paranoid suburban parent is unlikely to think that their 
teenage son or daughter is developing a smack habit, it's 
much easier to picture them smoking a joint or taking 
an E at a rave.  These parents are the swing voters, the 
people that political parties must win over to get 
elected, so they are the ones at whom the publicity 
campaign must be targeted.  The proof of this is in the 
number of customs seizures of heroin as opposed to 
those of hash or E.

Easy Targets
There are few, if any, grounds for criminalising 
cannabis.  Countless studies have shown it to be a drug 
that is not addictive and has next to no adverse physical 
effects, especially compared to alcohol and nicotine, 
Ireland's drugs of choice.  Ecstasy, though dangerous in 
large quantities (as with most drugs, legal or illegal), is 
safe at its normal dosage provided basic guidelines are 
followed1, drinking enough water if dancing, etc.  The 
two main health risks associated with using Ecstasy are 
of allergic reaction - a small percentage of people can be 
killed by a bee sting, a similar number of people may 
have an equally dangerous reaction to E - and the fact 
that not everything sold as Ecstasy is in fact MDMA.  
Lack of testing facilities means that people are at risk 
from unscrupulous dealers.  
Because neither of these drugs is addictive, it is 
(relatively) easy to control their usage.  Heroin is a 
different matter.  The physical craving for heroin, and 
the side-effects of withdrawal, prove unbearable for 
many, and ensure that there is a steady demand, even if 
the price is driven up by raids or seizures at customs.  It 
requires a lot of resources to deal with the problem of 
heroin in any meaningful way.  Needle exchanges are 
essential to stop the spread of disease through dirty 
needles.  Helping someone get off heroin means 
supplying them with other drugs to lessen the 
withdrawal symptoms, providing them with support 
facilities so that they do actually clean up rather than 
just develop another addiction, and finally, making 
sure that there is an alternative waiting for them so that 
they don't get hooked again six months after detoxing.  

Anti-Social Drugs
The absence of this support means that heroin is likely 
to remain a problem in Dublin for some time.  But it is 
important to realise exactly what the problem is.  Too 
often, analysis goes no further than 'Drugs are bad, 
heroin is a drug, therefore heroin is bad'.  Given that 
most of the people reading this article will have used 
some illegal drug - acid, E, speed, almost certainly 
cannabis - this is hardly a very credible argument.  The 
difference with heroin (the most common 'hard' drug 
in Ireland) is that it is highly addictive.  
Smack is an expensive habit, and since most drug users 
(like most smokers, heavy drinkers, and Lottery 
'players') come from poor backgrounds, they have to 
turn to crime.  Addiction to something as demanding as 
heroin means that most users cannot afford a sense of 
social responsibility.  This is the destructive side of 
drugs, this is why it is not mere moralism to describe 
heroin as a problem.  When so much of crime is related 
to a particular drug, that drug is obviously a problem.  

Solutions?
So what can we do?  The first step is to stop treating 
drugs as one undifferentiated mass, and to distinguish 
between those that are physically dangerous and those 
that are not, between those that are addictive and those 
that are not.  If we allow people to smoke cigarettes, why 
not allow people equal access to other recreational 
drugs, perhaps with the same age restrictions as apply to 
alcohol consumption.  Legalisation would allow 
regulation, which in turn allows testing, so that people 
won't be poisoned by dealers ripping them off.  
For more serious drugs, there are a number of options.  
At the very least, the current type of support 
programme needs to be properly funded.  More sensible 
approaches could also be tried.  For example, a doctor in 
England used to supply all of his addicted patients with 
medical heroin, which was both safer for them, as it 
removed the risks involved with using heroin 
available on the street - often cut with other drugs and 
of varying strengths - and better for those around them, 
as it allowed them to live a relatively normal life.  
The fundamental question is of freedom.  People must 
be free to do what they like with their own bodies, but 
the freedom of others must not be restricted.  Where a 
drug effects only the user, like cannabis or LSD, there 
can be no excuse for preventing a mature adult from 
using it.  If a drug effects others, like heroin, alcohol 
(indirectly responsible for how many road deaths and 
assaults per year?), or nicotine (cigarette smoke is bad 
for everyone who breathes it in, not just the smoker), 
then we can justify restricting its use to situations where 
bystanders are not harmed.  In short, then, we call for 
the decriminalisation of drugs, to allow people to make 
up their own minds on what they will use, and to make 
the circumstances under which they make that choice as 
safe as possible.  

Ray Cunningham

1 Though there are very few studies on the effects of 
long-term usage.  

