Tackling the drugs crisis in Ireland

I have been active in tackling the drugs crisis for 27 years. From protesting to policy development and now as a practitioner in a community-based drug project in Dublin’s south inner city. It has provided me an insight into addiction and the complexities of a growing, deepening and expanding drug trade. Over the years, I have witnessed the negative and destructive aspects of drug culture become more embedded in some of our communities.

From my experience, I can honestly say the drugs crisis reflects the very core of how unequal our society has become. Two families from very different backgrounds can both experience drug addiction. The affluent will be able to afford and attend private treatment and resolve the issue and move on. Unfortunately, if you are from a disadvantaged community, you will struggle with many other barriers put in your way because of economic inequalities in our society. 

We cannot tackle the causes or consequences of the drugs crisis without also tackling other social injustices. Lack of adequate mental health services, break down in relationships with Gardaí, lack of public services, and the ongoing housing crisis are some of the barriers that need to be urgently dismantled. 

Imagine an iceberg. The drugs crisis is the tip of that iceberg. But underneath is where all the causes and complex needs are hidden. As they say in recovery, you only have to change one thing. Everything.

• CPAD were a response in the 1980s to the heroin problem in Dublin’s north and south inner city

In preparation for this article, I googled ‘What is addiction?’ Up popped over 1.53 billion responses. This highlights the many and varied definitions and interpretations of addiction. In most people’s minds, addiction is associated with illegal substances bought and sold on street corners and dark alleys. But it is more complicated that this clichéd image.

According to the Health Service Executive, addiction is most commonly associated with gambling, drugs, alcohol, smoking, but it is possible to be addicted to just about anything, including work, the internet, solvents and shopping.

Bearing this in mind, most families across Ireland will have been touched by addiction. In most cases, it gets resolved. But for some communities, it becomes a drugs crisis. This is where politics and justice come in to it.

It is a drugs crisis when your playground, park, and open spaces are hijacked by drug dealing. When drug related violence traumatises your whole community. The crisis becomes compounded by a lack of access to mental health services, child psychologists and cuts to youth services. 

Community activists have been organising and demanding action for many years. Let us take a step back in time. Many will remember the Concerned Parents Against Drugs (CPAD). The CPAD were a response in the 1980’s to the heroin problem in Dublin’s north and south inner city.

Communities had been demanding action from successive Governments. But action had not been forthcoming. In fact, the then Labour Party Health Minister Barry Desmond had denied there was any drug crisis in Dublin. 

tate forces were deployed to marginalise and criminalise CPAD rather than going after those who were controlling the heroin trade. The Government and the mainstream media were outraged that ordinary, working-class communities would dare organise themselves and take power back from the big drug dealers in Dublin. 

Key activists were arrested and brought before the no-jury Special Criminal Court. This had a very negative effect on the anti-drugs movement. The truth was that official Ireland was content to keep heroin addiction confined to working-class areas. A policy of out of sight and out of mind was the order of the day. 

A resurgence in the mid 1990s of the anti-drugs movement led to the establishment of Coalition of Communities Against Drugs (COCAD). This group were similar to CPAD, but their appeal was beyond Dublin’s inner city and they were more focused on policy and the need for political change.

It was during this time I became actively involved in the anti-drugs movement. Like many others, I was driven by a sense of justice. I believed communities had a right to live without the threat of drug dealers and criminal gangs. I also felt very strongly that those battling addiction should be given every support to win this life and death battle.  

While it is true to say Sinn Féin activists like me were very active, it was not part of some big strategy or plan. It was simply a response to what was going on around us in communities we lived in.

This resurgent anti-drug movement crystalized in a new, broader coalition of forces. Meeting together in Liberty Hall, trade union activists, community activists and youth workers formed the CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign. 

CityWide as it became known was a very influential network. It focused not just on the immediate crisis of drug dealing but also shone the torch of publicity on the causes of Dublin’s drug crisis. It raised the question, why are so many of our young people in working class communities ending up in addiction. CityWide went on to provide training and support for community reps on the State established drug task forces, while providing evidence-based research that influenced Government policy.

Just like the 1980s, the state wanted to keep the problem of drugs contained to certain post codes. But one event changed all that.

A campaigning journalist, Veronica Guerin, was challenging the major criminals involved in the drugs trade. She regularly challenged and exposed them in the Sunday Independent. This led to her being assaulted and tragically shot dead in June 1996. The murder of a journalist in broad daylight moved the Government to taking swift action.

• Dublin's North Inner City memorial to victims of drug addiction

A report by the then junior Minister Pat Rabbitte in October 1996 confirmed what many had felt for years. Heroin addiction was strongly linked to areas of high disadvantage and deprivation. The report stated:

“We have no accurate count, but there could be up to eight thousand addicts in the Greater Dublin region. They are concentrated in communities that are also characterised by large-scale social and economic deprivation and marginalisation. The physical/environmental conditions in these neighbourhoods are poor, as are the social and recreational infrastructures.”

It was the first time any Government had acknowledged that problematic drug addiction was a class issue. This was not lost on activists. Feeling ignored or excluded by statutory agencies, communities across Dublin had been marching in their thousands demanding action. As well as marching, we also worked together to establish community-based responses to addiction. 

Groups in Ballymun, Ballyfermot, Ringsend, Crumlin, Darndale, Killinarden, Clondalkin, Kilbarrack began providing services which the state agencies failed to provide. 

Community-based drug rehabilitation projects were born. This was a direct challenge to those who claimed to know best. These were globally unique and have stood the test of time, with many developing in to modern day multi-faceted services.

As a result of the Rabbitte report, 12 Local Drug Task Forces were established in areas of high opiate addiction. Task forces were a radical community-based, inter-agency response. Budgets were allocated to fund local strategies. Nowhere had this been tried before. They were local task forces including state agencies, community reps, and Gardaí working in partnership to develop strategies to tackle addiction in communities that had been ignored for generations. All this was overseen by a junior Minister with sole responsibility for the National Drug Strategy. This too was globally unique. People power had forced drugs to the top of the political agenda. For the next five years, the main focus was on tackling heroin addiction. In 2002, this would all change. 

• The fear of violence and corrosive nature of a new emerging drugs trade undermined community solidarity

A CityWide meeting of community reps took place in Ozanam House in Dublin’s Merrion Square. It highlighted that cocaine was now becoming a major problem in working class communities. Up until now, cocaine had been associated with the rich and famous. But this was no longer true.

With the increased prevalence of cocaine, there was also an increase in drug related violence. This new drug was far more lucrative and more drug gangs became involved in the industry.

Once again, the powers that be chose the reliable head-in-the-sand option. Local communities were left on their own to cope with the many challenges cocaine presented. For local drug projects, new challenges emerged. The threats of violence and ‘poly drug use’, when someone is addicted to more than one drug had to be responded to.

The fear of violence and corrosive nature of a new emerging drugs trade undermined community solidarity. The big anti-drugs marches became a thing of the past. Tackling the drugs crisis began to slip down the list of political priorities.

This has resulted in massive cuts to local drug task forces, youth services and growing waiting lists for mental health care. At a policy level, the once strong voice of the community has been silenced. Power has once again become centralised within the Department of Health. 

Since my own involvement in 1996, there have been many steps forward in tackling the causes and consequences of the drugs crisis. The establishment of the local drugs task forces, appointment of a Minister with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, the Citizens Assembly to name the three main ones. 

Also, worth noting is that community-based drug projects, including where I work, are now firmly established and are seen as resources to the wider community. None of this would have happened had it not been for people organising their communities and ensuring experiences on the ground impacted directly on Government policy.

Governments have returned to a policy of containment. It has become acceptable to contain the violence and trauma of the drugs crisis to certain areas of the larger urban areas.

We are now at a tipping point. Either take action or condemn communities to slip deeper and deeper into the clutches of criminality. We need a Government committed to building strong, safe, welcoming communities. 

This will require the Government taking their heads out of the sand, giving themselves a good shake and once again prioritise tackling the drugs crisis.  If any future Government were to take tackling drug addiction seriously, they would have to reappoint a ‘super’ junior Minister with sole responsibility for the National Drug Strategy, reinstate the National Drug Strategy Team chaired by the Minister, put the community back at the centre of these structures, reverse cuts to the task forces and youth services and implement the findings of the Citizen Assembly on Drugs. These would be first steps in winning back the confidence of communities most effected by the drugs crisis. 

Another key step is to ensure that mental health services and child psychologists are prioritised for drug task force areas. This will ensure the cycle of trauma and drug addiction is dismantled. 

Longer term, the State needs to address addiction solely as a public health issue similar to alcohol and cigarettes. The war on drugs has failed. Criminalisation of addiction has not worked. It only leads to criminals controlling the industry, drug-related violence, stigma, marginalisation, and prison sentences. In no way does it assist the person, their family or their community.

Experience since the 1980s has proven that it is essential that practice on the ground must lead to policy change at Government level.  

The time is right to build a community-based model that tackles the causes and consequence of the drugs crisis. That model must have real partnership between communities and the State as its cornerstone. Only a model like this can deliver the change so badly needed at local level. 

Daithí Doolan is a Dublin City Sinn Féin councillor.