24 September 1998 Edition
Drugs: the state's failed legacy
Michael Pierse examines the policies used to tackle Dublin's drugs crisis
JACK DEMPSEY was, until recently, described as one of the most prolific drug dealers in the south Dublin area, flooding communities with depravity and death. Last week he stood impassively before a crowded hall in Lower Crumlin. A woman amongst the crowd asked him, ``are you a murderer?''. His casual demeanour and flippant disregard enraged many in the hall as he replied ``If you want to say so, yes''.
Significantly, Dempsey has never been convicted, charged or even arrested, starkly contrasting with many anti-drugs activists in the Dublin area. But, this had also been a major victory for the local community. Never before has such an elite figure in Dublin's underworld admitted publicly his folly in selling drugs and apologised to the local community. This had been the result of ongoing marches, meetings and patrols by local people; they had clearly caused this drug dealer much frustration.
However, much to the detriment and not to the fault of the local community, the occasion was a sad indictment of the inefficiency and disregard of society as a whole toward those communities plighted by drugs. Local Sinn Féin representative, Martina Kenna, was scathing in her analysis of this failure. ``The fact that a major drug dealer, whom the community have proven and long asserted as being so for many years, could stand in the company of over six hundred people and admit to being a murderer, while never even having been arrested in his life, is a disgrace and an insult to the people of Lower Crumlin''.
Dempsey's son, Carl, is now said to have inherited his paternal legacy of drug peddling and has emulated and possibly surpassed his own father, according to some. ``Daddy set up the supplier,'' Kenna said, castigating Dempsey for passing on his drugs empire so that another generation could suffer the consequences.
Indeed, the state has failed quite resoundingly in its legal and social response to the drugs problem in the 26 counties. The case of Jack Dempsey demonstrates the absolute absense of repercussions or accountability suffered by Dublin crime bosses.
Jim - aptly nicknamed ``The Whale'' - Gantley is another example. In the midst of a uniform council estate in Crumlin, his large, highly secured and expensively decorated home towers incongruously above the surrounding houses. A movement-activated alarm deafens locals when triggered off by passing cars and the numerous anti-drugs marches culminating on his doorstep.
However, Gantley claims that he does not, nor did he ever, involve himself in any way with illegal narcotics abuse or sale. It is a claim repudiated by the local community, who ponder his ongoing evasion of the law despite a flagrant display of the wealth he has accumulated through drugs. His highly fortified house is valued at £200,000 and he is currently under investigations from the Criminal Assets Bureau - Gantley has been a long-term social welfare recipient. His excessively lavish domestic situation, along with his several holidays per year to Spain, strongly suggest the communities' continual allegations of drug dealing are true. Yet little action has been taken.
But to concentrate on the legal agenda would be to do an injustice to the continuing efforts being made by community groups to supply diversion and realistic alternatives for young people in devastated areas.
In the Killinarden area of Tallaght the Coalition of Communities Against Drugs (COCAD) has been integrally involved in all aspects of community relations, including campaigns for more adequate drug treatment facilities. According to local activist Cecil Johnson, COCAD does not attempt to impose any broad scale political agenda, but rather, encourages communities to formulate their own policies, specific to their own difficulties and requirements.
In 1995 it was estimated by the Killinarden Committee that out of a population of 7,300 people in the community, a staggering 250 were addicted to heroin. In the intervening years since that survey, there has been little rise in these figures due, Johnson believes, to the upsurge in activity both in the spheres of actions taken against those flooding drugs into the area and the treatment programme for addicts.
People in the area have availed of drug treatment training and many addicts are opting for the detoxification and methadone treatment programmes, although not everyone agrees with methadone as an adequate mid to long term solution.
According to some attitudes within the anti-drugs movement, methadone is used as a callous means of stabilising addicts on a regular intake, and permanently placating them, rather than actually changing their lives or giving them the hope of recovery. If used according to the medical philosophy behind it, methadone should be used in decreased doses, eventually weaning the addict away from their dependancy. However, many addicts are allowed to stabilise on a regular intake, leaving them addicted to yet another drug. In Mountjoy Prison it is alleged that a strategy of stabilising long term inmate addicts, so as to quell their violent tendencies, has been orchestrated by the prison authorities - ignoring the need to rehabilitate them.
Anti drugs activist, Brian Kenna, outlined the difficulties and advances being made in enthusing of young people, suffering poverty and state neglect, to avoid drugs. ``There are little or no facilities available for the young people of the area,'' he said, speaking of a 50 year old estate in Lower Crumlin. One initiative being undertook by the Lower Crumlin Combined Communities (LCCC) is a lifeguarding course. Department of Education Qualifications are not necessary for this course, and thus it is more accessible to the large numbers of early school leavers. It is also, most importantly, Brian asserts, ``a means of offering young people a release from the supression of the drugs cycle while giving them a feeling of involvement in something productive''. But Kenna was also critical of the refusal of a local club to entertain a children's disco. ``Those that are in posession of the limited facilities should make them available to the community''.
Sinn Féin South East Inner City Representative and drugs worker in Ballymun, Daithí Doolan, spoke of the need for adequate funding to combat the drugs problem. A new Youth Services Fund, to be initiated at the end of September, is to allocate an ostensibly large £20m purely for the provision of youth services. The breakdown creates a more realsitic view of the actual effects. £1m will be distributed over a period of three years to each of the 13 drugs task forces, 12 in Dublin and one in Cork. The other £7m is to be allocated to major projects. According to Doolan this is totally inadequate, and to put it into context, the same sum was spent on the improvement grant made to the GAA for Croke Park. ``This is an insult to the young people of socially deprived areas, who are largely overlooked by the Government due to their lack of impact on elections. In effect social exclusion is continually being institutionalised''.
Alienation of impoverished young people is also apparent in the use of methadone, not to improve upon their mental and physical health, but rather to stabilise them and subjugate their personal needs to a ``crime-driven agenda''. Methadone treatment in the long term is extremely problematic. According to Doolan, the emphasis has been tragically shifted to a surreal scenario whereby the addict's relationship with the drug dealer is merely replaced by the Eastern Health Board.
Methadone is highly physically and mentally addictive. It includes such side effects as rotten teeth and bones and a sedation of the user. It is very easy to overdose while using methadone with other drugs, which many abusers do. The drug rose to prominence in the 1980s with the public health reaction to the growth of HIV and its use was and is mainly motivated for the purposes of harm reduction - saving businesses and property from frenzied robberies, without regard for the reasons driving the rates of addiction.
While, Doolan stresses, the use of the drug can be beneficial in many cases, there are a number of conditions relating to treatment and the provision of facilities which render it ineffectual. Not only there is no active practice of weaning addicts off the drug but there is an urgent need for local-based, long term community projects, designed to keep young people off drugs, treat those who are on them and provide aftercare to ensure relapses do not happen.
Detoxification in the short term can be successful. Addicts, within a week, can be weaned away from heroin through the use of a decreasing level of methadone on a daily basis. The philosophy of reducing levels over a one-to-two year duration is ``ridiculous,'' Doolan says. This rate of progress is too slow and negates the concentration and immediate dedication necessary for such a gruelling task. Boredom, depression, a circle of friends who all abuse drugs and a craving to fill the void make it too easy to fall back. Without individual, group and family counselling, adequate training and aftercare sevices, and the availability of real prospects and opportunities, young addicts ask why they should give up drugs.
Doolan recounted the statement made at a Conference in April by Pat McLaughlin, Programme Manager of the Eastern Health Board (EHB), who enthused that ``after years of debate we can now say methadone is the future''. This, he believes, ``speaks volumes'' for the common attitude of the authorities.
A Protocol, being enacted in October by the EHB, intends to involve General Practitioners more closely in the anti-drugs initiatives taking place. While the ideology behind this effort has been welcomed, some of the practicalities of the operation have been given a cool reception by activists. One of the objectives is to make methadone more widespread and accessible in an organised fashion. While this theory could be of benefit if it were accompanied by the adequate facilities, it will not be.
Another distressing and revealing aspect of Government policy is the failure to gather statistics on the level of the population addicted to drugs and the age groups most affected. No figures are available for Government spending on methadone treatment. Neither are there figures available on community addiction rates. How can we believe that the Government are serious about drugs when they have not even investigated the issue in any adequate manner or attempted to ensure that policy falls in line with the realities? One source, who is a General Practitioner, estimates conservatively that there are 10,000 addicts in Dublin, others put it as high as 30,000. One thing is for certain, heroin is spreading also outside the main cities and causing havoc in towns like Bray in County Wicklow, which is suffering epidemic growth rates in addiction amongst young people.
Despite a seemingly concerted effort by those in power within the Government, authorities and media spheres to criminalise such organisations as COCAD, it is these organisations which have been responsible, through constant campaigning, for the setting up of Drugs Task Forces, which are major catalysts in the anti-drugs movement. The so-called ``multi disciplinarian'' community-based committees are comprised of representatives from statutory, community and voluntary bodies.
The anti drugs movement has also been responsible for giving other community enhancement bodies a sense of purpose, and removed much of their fears and apprehensions, allowing them to assert their rights more vigorously. However, some also believe that funding was allocated discriminately, in order to subjugate the more revlutionary requests of these groupings to the more digestibly left-of-status-quo policies of others. The obviously inadequate funding allocated to COCAD, which has only provided for one part-time Policy Development Officer, and has denied them the meagre sum of £7,500 for the setting up of an office, is a representation of that.
If the drug problem in Dublin is to be alleviated, all the injustices continually hampering communities and exacerbating the demand for hard drugs must be dealt with from various angles, with compassion and serious consideration being the key mindsets of approach. Revolutionary thinking and imaginative initiatives must be adequately funded and those who have been working for so long within communities must not be ostracised from semi-state bodies due to selfish political agendas.
JACK DEMPSEY was, until recently, described as one of the most prolific drug dealers in the south Dublin area, flooding communities with depravity and death. Last week he stood impassively before a crowded hall in Lower Crumlin. A woman amongst the crowd asked him, ``are you a murderer?''. His casual demeanour and flippant disregard enraged many in the hall as he replied ``If you want to say so, yes''.
Significantly, Dempsey has never been convicted, charged or even arrested, starkly contrasting with many anti-drugs activists in the Dublin area. But, this had also been a major victory for the local community. Never before has such an elite figure in Dublin's underworld admitted publicly his folly in selling drugs and apologised to the local community. This had been the result of ongoing marches, meetings and patrols by local people; they had clearly caused this drug dealer much frustration.
However, much to the detriment and not to the fault of the local community, the occasion was a sad indictment of the inefficiency and disregard of society as a whole toward those communities plighted by drugs. Local Sinn Féin representative, Martina Kenna, was scathing in her analysis of this failure. ``The fact that a major drug dealer, whom the community have proven and long asserted as being so for many years, could stand in the company of over six hundred people and admit to being a murderer, while never even having been arrested in his life, is a disgrace and an insult to the people of Lower Crumlin''.
Dempsey's son, Carl, is now said to have inherited his paternal legacy of drug peddling and has emulated and possibly surpassed his own father, according to some. ``Daddy set up the supplier,'' Kenna said, castigating Dempsey for passing on his drugs empire so that another generation could suffer the consequences.
Indeed, the state has failed quite resoundingly in its legal and social response to the drugs problem in the 26 counties. The case of Jack Dempsey demonstrates the absolute absense of repercussions or accountability suffered by Dublin crime bosses.
Jim - aptly nicknamed ``The Whale'' - Gantley is another example. In the midst of a uniform council estate in Crumlin, his large, highly secured and expensively decorated home towers incongruously above the surrounding houses. A movement-activated alarm deafens locals when triggered off by passing cars and the numerous anti-drugs marches culminating on his doorstep.
However, Gantley claims that he does not, nor did he ever, involve himself in any way with illegal narcotics abuse or sale. It is a claim repudiated by the local community, who ponder his ongoing evasion of the law despite a flagrant display of the wealth he has accumulated through drugs. His highly fortified house is valued at £200,000 and he is currently under investigations from the Criminal Assets Bureau - Gantley has been a long-term social welfare recipient. His excessively lavish domestic situation, along with his several holidays per year to Spain, strongly suggest the communities' continual allegations of drug dealing are true. Yet little action has been taken.
But to concentrate on the legal agenda would be to do an injustice to the continuing efforts being made by community groups to supply diversion and realistic alternatives for young people in devastated areas.
In the Killinarden area of Tallaght the Coalition of Communities Against Drugs (COCAD) has been integrally involved in all aspects of community relations, including campaigns for more adequate drug treatment facilities. According to local activist Cecil Johnson, COCAD does not attempt to impose any broad scale political agenda, but rather, encourages communities to formulate their own policies, specific to their own difficulties and requirements.
In 1995 it was estimated by the Killinarden Committee that out of a population of 7,300 people in the community, a staggering 250 were addicted to heroin. In the intervening years since that survey, there has been little rise in these figures due, Johnson believes, to the upsurge in activity both in the spheres of actions taken against those flooding drugs into the area and the treatment programme for addicts.
People in the area have availed of drug treatment training and many addicts are opting for the detoxification and methadone treatment programmes, although not everyone agrees with methadone as an adequate mid to long term solution.
According to some attitudes within the anti-drugs movement, methadone is used as a callous means of stabilising addicts on a regular intake, and permanently placating them, rather than actually changing their lives or giving them the hope of recovery. If used according to the medical philosophy behind it, methadone should be used in decreased doses, eventually weaning the addict away from their dependancy. However, many addicts are allowed to stabilise on a regular intake, leaving them addicted to yet another drug. In Mountjoy Prison it is alleged that a strategy of stabilising long term inmate addicts, so as to quell their violent tendencies, has been orchestrated by the prison authorities - ignoring the need to rehabilitate them.
Anti drugs activist, Brian Kenna, outlined the difficulties and advances being made in enthusing of young people, suffering poverty and state neglect, to avoid drugs. ``There are little or no facilities available for the young people of the area,'' he said, speaking of a 50 year old estate in Lower Crumlin. One initiative being undertook by the Lower Crumlin Combined Communities (LCCC) is a lifeguarding course. Department of Education Qualifications are not necessary for this course, and thus it is more accessible to the large numbers of early school leavers. It is also, most importantly, Brian asserts, ``a means of offering young people a release from the supression of the drugs cycle while giving them a feeling of involvement in something productive''. But Kenna was also critical of the refusal of a local club to entertain a children's disco. ``Those that are in posession of the limited facilities should make them available to the community''.
Sinn Féin South East Inner City Representative and drugs worker in Ballymun, Daithí Doolan, spoke of the need for adequate funding to combat the drugs problem. A new Youth Services Fund, to be initiated at the end of September, is to allocate an ostensibly large £20m purely for the provision of youth services. The breakdown creates a more realsitic view of the actual effects. £1m will be distributed over a period of three years to each of the 13 drugs task forces, 12 in Dublin and one in Cork. The other £7m is to be allocated to major projects. According to Doolan this is totally inadequate, and to put it into context, the same sum was spent on the improvement grant made to the GAA for Croke Park. ``This is an insult to the young people of socially deprived areas, who are largely overlooked by the Government due to their lack of impact on elections. In effect social exclusion is continually being institutionalised''.
Alienation of impoverished young people is also apparent in the use of methadone, not to improve upon their mental and physical health, but rather to stabilise them and subjugate their personal needs to a ``crime-driven agenda''. Methadone treatment in the long term is extremely problematic. According to Doolan, the emphasis has been tragically shifted to a surreal scenario whereby the addict's relationship with the drug dealer is merely replaced by the Eastern Health Board.
Methadone is highly physically and mentally addictive. It includes such side effects as rotten teeth and bones and a sedation of the user. It is very easy to overdose while using methadone with other drugs, which many abusers do. The drug rose to prominence in the 1980s with the public health reaction to the growth of HIV and its use was and is mainly motivated for the purposes of harm reduction - saving businesses and property from frenzied robberies, without regard for the reasons driving the rates of addiction.
While, Doolan stresses, the use of the drug can be beneficial in many cases, there are a number of conditions relating to treatment and the provision of facilities which render it ineffectual. Not only there is no active practice of weaning addicts off the drug but there is an urgent need for local-based, long term community projects, designed to keep young people off drugs, treat those who are on them and provide aftercare to ensure relapses do not happen.
Detoxification in the short term can be successful. Addicts, within a week, can be weaned away from heroin through the use of a decreasing level of methadone on a daily basis. The philosophy of reducing levels over a one-to-two year duration is ``ridiculous,'' Doolan says. This rate of progress is too slow and negates the concentration and immediate dedication necessary for such a gruelling task. Boredom, depression, a circle of friends who all abuse drugs and a craving to fill the void make it too easy to fall back. Without individual, group and family counselling, adequate training and aftercare sevices, and the availability of real prospects and opportunities, young addicts ask why they should give up drugs.
Doolan recounted the statement made at a Conference in April by Pat McLaughlin, Programme Manager of the Eastern Health Board (EHB), who enthused that ``after years of debate we can now say methadone is the future''. This, he believes, ``speaks volumes'' for the common attitude of the authorities.
A Protocol, being enacted in October by the EHB, intends to involve General Practitioners more closely in the anti-drugs initiatives taking place. While the ideology behind this effort has been welcomed, some of the practicalities of the operation have been given a cool reception by activists. One of the objectives is to make methadone more widespread and accessible in an organised fashion. While this theory could be of benefit if it were accompanied by the adequate facilities, it will not be.
Another distressing and revealing aspect of Government policy is the failure to gather statistics on the level of the population addicted to drugs and the age groups most affected. No figures are available for Government spending on methadone treatment. Neither are there figures available on community addiction rates. How can we believe that the Government are serious about drugs when they have not even investigated the issue in any adequate manner or attempted to ensure that policy falls in line with the realities? One source, who is a General Practitioner, estimates conservatively that there are 10,000 addicts in Dublin, others put it as high as 30,000. One thing is for certain, heroin is spreading also outside the main cities and causing havoc in towns like Bray in County Wicklow, which is suffering epidemic growth rates in addiction amongst young people.
Despite a seemingly concerted effort by those in power within the Government, authorities and media spheres to criminalise such organisations as COCAD, it is these organisations which have been responsible, through constant campaigning, for the setting up of Drugs Task Forces, which are major catalysts in the anti-drugs movement. The so-called ``multi disciplinarian'' community-based committees are comprised of representatives from statutory, community and voluntary bodies.
The anti drugs movement has also been responsible for giving other community enhancement bodies a sense of purpose, and removed much of their fears and apprehensions, allowing them to assert their rights more vigorously. However, some also believe that funding was allocated discriminately, in order to subjugate the more revlutionary requests of these groupings to the more digestibly left-of-status-quo policies of others. The obviously inadequate funding allocated to COCAD, which has only provided for one part-time Policy Development Officer, and has denied them the meagre sum of £7,500 for the setting up of an office, is a representation of that.
If the drug problem in Dublin is to be alleviated, all the injustices continually hampering communities and exacerbating the demand for hard drugs must be dealt with from various angles, with compassion and serious consideration being the key mindsets of approach. Revolutionary thinking and imaginative initiatives must be adequately funded and those who have been working for so long within communities must not be ostracised from semi-state bodies due to selfish political agendas.