One in six teenagers is smoking daily and up to one in five is drunk regularly, a new study shows. Research by Trinity College in Dublin looked at the social habits of the pupils in 16 different schools and found up to a third of the 14 and 15 year olds had used at least one illegal drug. Almost one in five of the teenagers interviewed said they had used illegal drugs in the previous month. Cannabis is the most commonly used substance -- followed by inhalants -- and most children begin experimenting just after their 12th birthday. [continues 152 words]
Prisoners are becoming addicted to tranquillisers and sleeping tablets because there are no proper checks on prescriptions being dispensed in jailed. Prison doctors confirmed last night up to one third of inmates, many with alcohol and other addictions, are also becoming hooked on legal drugs because medication is prescribed for long periods without a review date. Irish Prison Doctors' Association chairman, Dr Ronan Ryder, said the main problem of sedative misuse was underfunding coupled with a system which allows prisoners to `doctor shop' and get drugs from both psychiatrists and GPs. [continues 325 words]
A US drugs dealer, jailed in Florida, had cash laundered through the Guinness and Mahon Bank, the Moriarty tribunal heard yesterday. Fernardo Pruna, a Florida landowner, was charged and convicted after an intensive investigation by the US Narcotics Bureau into the secretive Cayman Island bank. It was an investigation that caused great concern among the Irish directors of the Dublin based bank, including the late Des Traynor. They were worried that information concerning coded secret offshore deposits might also be made available to revenue authorities. [continues 299 words]
I have been contacted by many parents who are bitterly hurt and angry at John Bowman's irresponsible promotion of the drug culture during RTE's Questions and Answers programme on January 17. Some of the parents who contacted me have lost children to drugs and their pain was palpable, even over the phone. Others are probably luckier in that their children are still alive but in a living hell because some other idiots trivialise the effects of drugs in similar fashion to what Mr Bowman and his guests did in that programme. [continues 175 words]
The gardai’s Christmas blitz on drink drivers will miss hundreds of motorists under the influence of illegal drugs, like cannabis and cocaine, requiring an immediate change in the law according to Fine Gael’s Michael Noonan. Deputy Noonan said the use of illegal drugs is now so widespread in Ireland that legislation is required immediately to impose severe penalties on those who drive while incapacitated as a result of using illegal drugs. “Cocaine and heroin is in widespread use in Dublin, and in Cork to a lesser extent, while so called soft drugs are available and being abused in almost every rural village in Ireland. [continues 364 words]
DRUG pushers might soon have to issue health warnings when selling cannabis -- Ireland's most popular illegal drug -- following the discovery in the US that smoking marijuana can cause cancer. In a medical first, researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Centre are reporting that smoking cannabis increases the risk of head and neck cancers. Some ageing hippies might now decide its the time to come off the grass following the results of an epidemiological study published in the peer reviewed journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarker and Prevention. [continues 289 words]
DUBLIN: Almost 60 child prostitutes are believed to be working on the streets of the capital, according to the latest figures available. An Eastern Health Board study found 57 children involved in prostitution, with the majority of them being solicited on the streets, particularly in the Phoenix Park area. Boys as young as 13 are involved in the sex trade, according to a study by the Gay Men’s Health project. Most male prostitutes are aged between 17 and 23 years, but some in their early teens were also identified. Mostly they started out looking for money for drugs and drifted into prostitution as a result. Paul Flynn, a social worker with Crosscare, has told how young boys cared for by the centre have been picked up off the streets. They told of being plied with drugs and taken to locations for group abuse. [continues 670 words]
Dr Hallinan of the Irish Medicines Board maintains that by licensing herbal and nutritional supplements these products will somehow become safer and better value, despite the inevitable jump in their prices The Examiner, November 22). The logic is flawed when one takes into account the documented safety records of these supplements. The Poisons Unit in Beaumont Hospital, for example, hasn't had a single report of side effects from last year92s estimated 75,000 users of St John's Wort in Ireland. Will putting the herb on prescription improve that safety record? [continues 214 words]
A BRITISH Labour MP yesterday publicly supported a call from a senior Scottish judge for a Royal Commission to look at the decriminalisation of cannabis and the sentencing of drugs offenders. Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West and a member of the Welsh assembly, welcomed the call by Lord McCluskey, claiming: ‘‘The judge is saying in public what most informed experts say in private that cannabis laws needlessly criminalise the majority of young people.’’ And the MP declared: ‘‘Even the Drug Czar, Keith Hellawell, has admitted that cannabis use is ‘normal’ among young people.’’ [continues 87 words]
THE fall of a hero invariably evokes a gamut of reactions ranging from sympathy to disappointment and occasionally, when that decline is self inflicted, those feelings give way to disillusionment, shame and disgrace. Such is the case with Ireland's former golden girl Michelle de Bruin whose fall from grace has left a once glittering career in tatters. Unsurprisingly, the combative Olympic swimming champion continues to protest her innocence, claiming her achievements were won without recourse to illegal performance enhancing drugs. [continues 374 words]
YOUTH AFFAIRS Minister Willie O'Dea ought to study the situation in the US before suggesting shoot-from-the-hip solutions. The incarceration rate and drug use by children are both disgracefully high. In fact, looking at the severity of drug prohibition versus the level of youth drug abuse across a spectrum of nations, we can see that the two are directly, not inversely, related. The same thing happened in the US during alcohol prohibition in the 1920s: drinking invaded the schools, just as drug prohibition is now causing drugs to be used by children. But the data is there to prove the case. I suggest the Minister read the Drug Policy Libraries website at www.druglibrary.org and change his tune, for the good of the children if not for his own credibility. Peter Webster, International Journal of Drug Policy, Le Sienne, 37, Avenue Mont Joli, 06110 Le Cannet, France. vignes@monaco.mc [end]
YOUTH AFFAIRS Minister Willie O'Dea ought to study the situation in the US before suggesting shoot-from-the-hip solutions. The incarceration rate and drug use by children are both disgracefully high. In fact, looking at the severity of drug prohibition versus the level of youth drug abuse across a spectrum of nations, we can see that the two are directly, not inversely, related. The same thing happened in the US during alcohol prohibition in the 1920s: drinking invaded the schools, just as drug prohibition is now causing drugs to be used by children. But the data is there to prove the case. I suggest the Minister read the Drug Policy Libraries website at www.druglibrary.org and change his tune, for the good of the children if not for his own credibility. Peter Webster, International Journal of Drug Policy, Le Sienne, 37, Avenue Mont Joli, 06110 Le Cannet, France. vignes@monaco.mc - --- [end]
THE gangland assassination of a Dublinman on Wednesday night was the second underworld killing this year, sparking fears of a renewed round of criminal in-fighting. The shooting comes within three weeks of the murder of John Dillon, a 53-year-old small-time Dublin criminal who had previously been involved in armed bank raids. Dillon was shot several times at point-blank range at the door of his home in Finglas. The latest victim, 44-year-old Pascal Boland, was also known to gardai, for bank robberies in the 1980s, and as a drug dealer with a northside Dublin gang. He was shot six times outside his home. [continues 728 words]
ANTI-SMOKING campaigns by the Department of Health were and would continue to be formulated without interference from the tobacco industry, the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children was told yesterday. Chris Fitzgerald, principal officer of the Health Department, rejected claims made at a previous meeting of the committee by Dr Fenton Howell, president-elect of the Irish Medical Organisation, that the tobacco industry influenced policy formulation within the department. "Based on my 10 years experience in dealing with tobacco-related issues in this department I am prepared to state categorically that this was not the case," said Mr Fitzgerald. [continues 306 words]
I also note that the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, was recently reported to have expressed surprise that the price of illegal drugs on the street has not risen after recent seizures. If this surprises Mr Byrne, it comes as no surprise to me. The market for illegal drugs is so massive that little that the law enforcement agencies do is going to make a difference. The UN estimates the total world trade in illegal drugs at $400 billion per annum, or about 8% of the total value of legitimate international commerce. [continues 461 words]
Justice Minister John O'Donoghue's proposals to allow courts to draw inferences of guilt from a suspect's failure to answer questions and to allow for extended periods of detention are unnecessary, unfair and unwise. The proposed measures are unnecessary because the crime rate is falling steadily and there is no evidence that the lack of such powers is allowing criminals to go free. In fact, there has been no research on the effect of similar powers introduced under the 1996 Drug Trafficking Act. [continues 213 words]
Eggs were one of a number of marketable goods rationed during the Second World War. Rationing is merely the prohibition of certain goods above a set quantity. Rationing led to a black market and cause otherwise law-abiding citizens to become criminals. It also led to corruption, with authority figures turning a blind eye in return for an extra slice or two of bacon or a pair of nylon stockings. The United States of America prohibited alcohol for a decade earlier this century. Once again, a black market sprang up and flourished. Again, many otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals, and again there was widespread corruption. [continues 214 words]
