Stanton Also Wants Traveller Ethnicity Recognised A NEWLY appointed junior justice minister wants personal possession of all illegal drugs to be decriminalised as part of the Government's plan to tackle gangland crime. Minister of State for Equality, Migration and Integration, David Stanton, also plans to use his new position to convince Fine Gael colleagues to recognise the Travelling Community as a distinct ethnic minority group. Speaking for the first time since taking office, Mr Stanton also revealed Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald is supportive of both proposals. [continues 517 words]
The 'war' on drugs was lost before it had ever begun. The futility of prohibition is finally beginning to dawn, writes Dan O'Brien EFFORTS to stop people taking intoxicants will be in vain for as long as human nature is as it is. The downsides of prohibiting substances that people want to consume outweighs the upsides. For softer drugs, such as cannabis, the case for decriminalisation is overwhelming. These realities are at last having an effect on the debate in many countries, Ireland included. Just last week the Mexican supreme court in a majority decision ruled that a "cannabis club" was not breaking the law by growing and transporting the drug for its members' recreational use. North of the Rio Grande, some US states have decriminalised marijuana in recent years and many more are allowing its use for medicinal purposes. [continues 1034 words]
A Notorious Drug Dealer Is One Of 12 Suspects For An Assault Which Saw A Detective Pistol-Whipped. The criminal has been identified by gardai as a main suspect after a detective who was held at gunpoint was beaten unconscious by the assailant with a gun in a Dublin park. The middle-aged detective, who is attached to Sundrive Road garda station, was knocked unconscious in the attack at Ravensdale Park in Kimmage on March 25. While he is making a good recovery from his injuries, an intensive garda investigation into the incident is continuing. [continues 371 words]
If We Treat Recreational Drugs in the Same Way As Prescription Ones, We Might Be in a Better State, Says Julia Molony SO MEDICAL marijuana will soon be added to your local GP's prescription slate. But don't all go rushing down asking for a couple of spliffs every time you've got a stomach ache. The drug will be available for therapeutic purposes only, initially for treatment of spacisity in Multiple Sclerosis. However, it has clinical applications for an array of ailments, including seizures and to improve cancer patients' tolerance for treatments such as chemotherapy. [continues 600 words]
Killing Surge As Gang Struggles To Repay $50m Lost In Cocaine Seizure A Massive drug debt, estimated at up to $50m, owed by Ireland's leading drugs syndicate to the Colombian cocaine cartels prompted last week's $7.9m robbery at the Bank of Ireland in Dublin and is fuelling the latest wave of gangland killings in the city, it has emerged. The Dublin gang behind the shipment which was intercepted by the Naval Service off the west coast last November is said to be desperate to raise the huge bill amid suspicions that the Colombians and major drugs gangs in Britain are threatening retribution. [continues 598 words]
Twenty-five drug dealers in south inner Dublin have been cautioned by gardai that their lives are under threat arising from the bloody feud between the two Drimnagh and Crumlin-based gangs. It is the largest number of such warnings ever issued in a single division. Intelligence has led local detectives to intercept and prevent several murders, but sources say the threat to life is ever present, with gang members "floating around" looking for rivals and setting up people for assassination. [continues 682 words]
According to some new studies, smoking dope can seriously damage your ability to learn. Carol Hunt weeds out the truth TWENTY years ago, while I was living in New York, Nancy Reagan was busy pushing her finger-wagging, "Just say 'No,'" anti-drugs campaign with little or no success. Television ads warned of the terrible things that would happen to you if you dared inhale the Devil's weed, and teenagers fell around the place laughing as they watched and rolled themselves another joint. [continues 1108 words]
Cannabis Does Far More Harm to Your Brain Than You Might Think, Says Dr Harry Barry RECENT research from Trinity College, Dublin, into the effects of chronic use of cannabis has confirmed what many GPs and psychiatrists have known for quite some time: namely, that it adversely affects the brain -- particularly the prefrontal cortex, our thinking, rational, logical brain. Their studies related to evidence of memory loss, but there has been plenty of clinical and research evidence to show how chronic use can lead to depression, psychosis and schizophrenia. [continues 738 words]
The drug substitute methadone is leading to the deaths of more addicts than heroin, disturbing figures have revealed. A report by the Dublin City Coroner has shown that of the 87 inquests heard in his court last year, pure heroin was found to have caused the deaths of 14 people and contributed to a further 12. However, methadone, the legal substitute used to treat those with a heroin addiction, was found to have caused the deaths of 12 people and contributed to a further 19 deaths. [continues 585 words]
Sir -- The rules have changed, the game is still the same. Reviewing our drug policy is no longer a battle between drug users and politicians. Ireland's cocaine problem is expensive, and costly in terms of the lives of young, healthy, intelligent people. Up until now, legalisation of marijuana wasn't a very important issue. It wasn't bothering a significant portion of the population. Organised crime was confined to ganglands, hard drugs were very much in the background, our drug policy wasn't on anyone's agenda. [continues 162 words]
The Taoiseach is describing today's statement by the Ulster Defence Association as 'significant'. Bertie Ahern made the comments following the organisation's commitment to stand down its military wing, the UFF, from midnight tonight. He said it's important to remember the victims of atrocities over the years and he acknowledged the input of those working for peace including Martin McAleese The Taoiseach said the statement signals a further step towards ending all paramilitarism in Northern Ireland. While, the UDA has announced it is to stand down all its and put its guns beyond use, it would not, however, it said be decommissioning its weapons. [continues 125 words]
The very public execution of John Daly last week brings the murder toll relating to gangs in Finglas to 49 -- and all but a handful remain unsolved. One of the most frequent sights on RTE's recent news coverage is of its crime correspondent, Paul Reynolds, standing in a suburban working-class estate reporting details of the latest gangland slaying in Dublin. Paul is by now familiar with the route from Montrose or his home to Ratoath Drive or Cloonlara Drive in Finglas, where the latest victim met his end. Increasingly, Paul's reports end with the observation that, given the Garda track record, there is little prospect of the latest murder being solved. [continues 1521 words]
SHOULD Michael MacDowell ever do Desert Island Discs, his list is unlikely to include the song Contemplating Contempt by obscure Nineties Irish rockers The Far Canals. The lyrics work better sung than read: "Write the law on a piece of paper/ Roll it up into a reefer/ Burn it!/ Smoke it!/ That's all it's worth!" Despite rave reviews for their album, the band never really took off (which was particularly unfortunate for me, as their manager). But maybe they were just ahead of their time. If the results of last week's Oireachtas report on drugs can be believed, more than 300,000 Irish citizens now agree that our cannabis laws aren't worth the paper they're written on. [continues 1152 words]
A woman has told gardai that she got involved in the flourishing drug trade between Ireland and Africa to raise enough money to send her son to a good school. Gardai say that most of the 'mules' who courier drugs for mainly Nigerian gangs are not career criminals just individuals who are down on their luck and need some extra funds. So far this year, 16 South African nationals have been arrested at Dublin Airport for importing drugs into Ireland. The same figure for the whole of last year was 12 and this increase is beginning to worry gardai who are attempting to crack down on the escalating drug trade between South Africa and Ireland's capital city. [continues 135 words]
Sir - Before Joe MacAnthony goes rushing off suing drug dealers who are unlucky enough to get caught, may I suggest he take a moment and reflect on who is really to blame for the damage caused by illegal drugs? The party most to blame is the government whose drug prohibition law is the cause of most of the harm. It is because the drugs are illegal that the customers are not properly informed as to the risks involved. "Just say no" mantras from various police officers and other "experts" don't count. When alcohol was re-legalized after prohibition, the number of user deaths and blindness brought about by adulterated booze fell dramatically. Does it not stand to reason the same phenomenon will occur when the last remaining illegal drugs are legalised? Alan Randell, Canada. [end]
Joe Macanthony On A Way To Make Drug Barons Pay For Their Crimes LAST week's award of $3 billion in damages against the Philip Morris tobacco company for causing cancer in 56-year-old Richard Boeken raises the inevitable question. Why can't the same approach be taken and similar damages be sought from our latterday drug dealers? The evidence against them in Ireland is more compelling in the immediate damage than that marshalled against the tobacco companies in the United States. Our drug traders have created over 13,000 heroin addicts in Dublin alone, with up to 1,000 new ones appearing each year. The inner south city has an addiction rate among 15-to-24-year-olds the worst in Europe. Half of the Republic's prison population is addicted to drugs; over 80 per cent test positive to hepatitis C. [continues 674 words]
A PARENTAL consent requirement that is preventing hundreds of young heroin users from accessing methadone treatment is currently being reviewed by the government. The fact that a person under 18 years of age needs parental permission to take up methadone treatment has effectively kept many underage drug users out of the system. The establishment of regional task forces to develop policies for their own areas is a central tenet of the government's drug strategy for 2001 to 2008, which was unveiled last week. The Minister for Local Development with Special Responsibility for the Drugs Strategy, Eoin Ryan, is now setting up an expert group to tackle the thorny issue of parental consent. [end]
THE DRUG used by Britian's most prolific serial killer, Dr Harold Shipman, to murder 15 elderly female patients is to remain on the banned substance list in the Republic. A proposal to legalise diamorphine better known as heroin under strict medical supervision has been ruled out by an expert group in a report to the Minister for Health, Micheal Martin. The drug, Dr Shipman's chosen instrument of death, is used extensively in Britain to relieve severe pain in cancer patients and following operations. [continues 382 words]
A MAJOR new report, seen by the Sunday Independent, lays bare in startling terms the culture of alcoholic drink and illicit drugs among Irish teenagers. The report, which will be published on Tuesday, is the first major study in four years of what is now widely regarded as one of the biggest social problems in this country. The main finding is that Irish youths are starting to drink at a younger age, and that the numbers who drink frequently, and have been drunk 20 times or more, is going up. [continues 759 words]
An Irish health board is calling in external medical experts to investigate two GPs who it has discovered have prescribed over 2,800 doses of dangerous drugs in one year alone. In a letter to pharmacists, the health board warned that the Dr Harold Shipman case in Britain had raised concerns here over the use of morphine or pethidine, which is strictly regulated. Last night, the health board told the Sunday Independent it was still investigating the issue, despite a decision by the Medical Council not to hold an inquiry into the doctors concerned. The health board had sought the inquiry and reported the two doctors last year after its investigations. Both doctors work on their own as GPs and have insisted that the drug administrations were justified. Morphine and pethidine are rarely prescribed by GPs. Leading medical experts said last night that an average GP would only administer between five and 10 doses a year . [continues 426 words]
