Pubdate: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 Source: Irish Examiner (Ireland) Copyright: Examiner Publications Ltd, 2000 Contact: http://www.examiner.ie/ NO QUICK FIX FOR ADDICTS THE world renowned Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, probably first became known to Irish audiences via the make believe world of the movies. In the film Outbreak, two infectious disease experts - handsome and beautiful respectively - raced against the clock to save an American town - apple pie and white picket fences - from a deadly and wildly contagious virus. The killer bug came from a monkey in the South American jungle, the baddies were the Government who wanted its existence hushed up, and the hero and heroine - romantically linked of course - found the cure just in time to stop the army bombing the helpless townsfolk into oblivion. If only it was so simple in real life. But the reality behind the presence of a CDC expert in Dublin this week is rather less sensational and considerably more grim. Heroin addicts are dying. It's a painful, distressing death. They're mostly young - one of the victims was just 21. And they're all from parts of Dublin city where white picket fences are only found around graves. After a week of startling bulletins featuring rising death counts, rapid response plans and talk of toxicology tests and lab reports, attention is now beginning to focus on the wider picture. For while scientists in white coats squint through microscope lenses and doctors and nurses fight to keep patients alive, the realisation is starting to dawn that for all the involvement of hospitals, clinics and labs, this is not really a medical problem. It is a social problem, and one whose origin is much more difficult to tackle than the bacteria or contaminant killing the addicts is likely to be when it is eventually identified. Hughie McGeown, the chairman of COCAD, the Coalition of Communities Against Drugs, would love to make pronouncements about community outcry over the deaths. He'd be delighted to say people were banging down his door demanding public meetings or a march on Leinster House. But the reality is that they aren't shocked by the deaths. "It might be some mystery illness now, but if isn't that it's Hepatitis C or AIDS or suicide. We're burying kids every week. Official Ireland may throw its hands up and say this is dreadful, but it's not unexpected in the places where it's happening. People are immune to it." Immunity has come from repeatedly damning statistics. Out of the 6,043 drug users who sought treatment at drug clinics around the country in 1998, the last year for which records are complete, 4,297 were addicted to heroin. The next nearest group is terms of size were cannabis users who numbered 642 but tellingly, the next largest group again were the 331 addicted to unprescribed methadone, the heroin substitute dispensed by clinics, supposedly only by prescription. Of the 6,043, the vast majority, 4,572, were from Dublin. The biggest groups were categorised as coming from the north inner city (687), south inner city (600), Drumcondra including Ballymun (450), Ballyfermot (352), Clondalkin (326) and Tallaght (310), all areas traditionally associated with deprivation, unemployment, welfare reliance, early school leaving and crime. These are only the people who came for treatment. The rule of thumb recommends taking the official figure, multiplying it by three and not being surprised if that's still an underestimate. Hughie McGeown believes the figures would be more accurate if addicts had a realistic opportunity to get treatment. "The health boards and the addiction services are totally inadequate for what is happening. You can't tell someone hooked on heroin they'll have to wait six months for a bed in a treatment centre - six months is a lifetime for an addict." It's not just the health services that let them down either. According to Hughie, who lives in Clondalkin, arrangements for policing, education and training are equally inadequate. "The Celtic Tiger is a fallacy up here. They put up 10,000 houses and no library, no bank, no clinic. Kids don't even dream about third level education here. They don't know what it is to plan for a career. "Up here the drug dealers are local heroes. I hate them with a passion but others see them as making a good living out of what's happening around them, and what's wrong with that?" Heroin may be the curse of the community but the killer is apathy. "They nearly give you a medal here if you rear your kid to 16 without them taking drugs. It's the norm instead of the exception. They say isn't it great, he's 17 and clean. They don't even realise what they're saying any more or how horrendous it is." For Hughie, the dealers are only small fry in the scandal. The real crime is that public officials and politicians were taking money from property developers involved in elite developments while vast neighbourhoods of working class people suffered the results of bad planning and weak social policy. "In the last local election 18% turned out to vote here. That shows how much faith people have in politicians. "When they talk about how much they're spending on this and that for drug addicts, I get mad. What they spend on addiction programmes here is not for the well being of addicts - it's about law and order. "It's to stop the kids going up to Lucan and Castleknock and robbing the people's nice houses. If the priority of our health service is to stop kids robbing, that's not much of a service." - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk