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Title: Dublin Communities Organise Author: Patricia McCarthy Date: 1996 Language: en Topics: drugs, Ireland, community organizing, Workers Solidarity Source: Retrieved on 5th December 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws/drug47.html Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 47 Spring — 1996.
The heroin epidemic in Dublin is causing major problems for addicts and
for the communities where they live. Oddly enough you would not get any
inkling of this crisis from the bourgeois press. That is because the
epidemic and its effects are confined to the inner city and the working
class suburbs like Ballymun, Tallaght, Clondalkin and Blanchardstown.
The politicians and the powers that be don’t give a damn about the
people who live in these communities or about the problems they face.
So, starting last summer, these communities began to organise their own
response to the drugs crisis.
ICON, the Inner City Organisations Network, based on the northside, took
an initiative. It started a series of meetings, open to the community,
in the North Star Hotel to discuss ways to tackle the problem. These
meetings were well attended by local people who talked about their
experiences with sons and daughters, brothers and sisters and partners
who are addicts and who can’t get on to the treatment programmes because
the waiting lists are so long.
There are now upwards of five hundred addicts waiting to get on
methadone treatment programmes in Dublin. Some of these are in their
early teens. Some are very sick with the HIV virus and even Aids. Yet
the main response of the government announced in the summer was a law
and order one concentrated on security and policing. These kinds of
responses have been tried in practically every country experiencing the
same drugs crisis without success.
ICON soon saw the need to spread out the campaign to other communities.
A series of city wide meetings were held in Liberty Hall which were
attended by people from the Liberties, Blanchardstown, Tallaght,
Ballymun and other areas. A series of demands were drawn up and
sub-groups set up to deal with the different aspects of the problem. A
big increase in the availability of treatment for addicts both in
locally based clinics, under community control, and from local G.Ps are
central demands.
Other issues are the lack of methadone maintenance programmes in the
prisons, the lack of success by the police in catching the big dealers,
and the desperate social and economic conditions in the communities
which cause the drug addiction in the first place.
Unlike the community response in the 1980s, there has been little
enthusiasm for a return to the tactics of the Concerned Parents Against
Drugs. CPAD had taken a direct action approach to dealers and those
suspected of dealing, and forced them out of the communities. Although
some people within the campaign do still favour this approach, most
don’t because of the totally changed situation on the ground now. Now
most families involved in the campaign have a close relative who is an
addict, they may even have a close relative who has died at a young age
from a drug related illness. Many addicts are also small time dealers in
order to support their habit.
The drug problem is so closely intertwined with the fabric of the
community now ,especially in the inner city areas, that it is no longer
possible or desirable to adopt the tactics of CPAD because people would
be targeting members of their own families. Another reason is that there
is now a clearer realisation that there is nothing to be gained by just
pushing the problem and the addicts from one area to another.
There are other issues to be tackled too, such as the fact that
methadone itself is highly addictive and some experts argue that it is
better to prescribe heroin. The whole issue of legalisation and
decriminalisation of hard and soft drugs is also up for debate.
Resistance from communities to drug treatment clinics in their areas
also has to be tackled head on. On the other hand there are examples
from Tallaght of working class communities getting together to set up
their own treatment programmes with the support of one or two G.Ps when
the Eastern Health Board refused to deal with the problem.
The reluctance of G.Ps to treat addicts is basically a financial one. If
the Dept. of Health would agree to pay them more to treat addicts, many
more would willingly do so. Strangely enough this is exactly the same
line of argument they use about treating Travellers!
The state is not putting in the resources to tackle the problem in any
effective way. Their response is primarily a policing one. As long as
the heroin problem stays in the working class communities — where it
creates havoc with people lives — the state will not bother to respond
in a serious manner unless it is forced to do so. This is what the ICON
led campaign has been set up to do. It has the direct support and
involvement of local people from working class communities and is
democratically run. It remains to be seen if it can be effective against
the indifference and self-interest of the ruling class.