Families of addicts ‘shot at by dealers’

FAMILIES of cocaine addicts in debt to drug dealers are being terrorised and their homes shot at, community activists said yesterday.

Drug projects said parents of users are being forced to send their children abroad to protect them from dealers.

And female users with children are handing over their children’s allowance books to dealers in exchange for cocaine.

Activists from across Dublin protested outside the Dáil yesterday at what they claim is the Government’s failure to implement the National Drugs Strategy and properly fund drug projects.

They claim the Government is failing to address the cocaine crisis sweeping Dublin, which includes a growing crack cocaine problem.

“We have a crisis at the moment with cocaine. It’s worse than the epidemic in the 1980s with heroin,” said Angela McLoughlin, a veteran drug activist in the Darndale/Belcamp area of north Dublin.

“Cocaine is all over the place. Cocaine is killing people. At least for heroin there was a treatment drug, methadone. There’s nothing for cocaine.”

The financial debts caused by cocaine were worse: “Homes are being wrecked, families are being terrorised; we’ve had a number of shootings. Families have to send their kids to other countries because their children owe money.”

Former drug user Michelle Walsh said mothers in the Coolock area of north Dublin were handing over their children’s allowance books to dealers as security for their drugs.

“They take the book off them. They’re not bringing food to their kids. That’s how bad it’s gone.”

Michelle, who is in the Rehabilitation Aided Support Programme (RASP), said cocaine was being sold openly on street corners.

More than 200 people turned out for a two-hour protest outside the Dáil, organised by the Citywide Drugs Crisis Campaign.

Citywide chairwoman Anna Quigley said the Government was failing to properly fund both regional and local drug task forces.

She said a newly established “emerging needs” fund for Dublin, to combat the rise in cocaine use and polydrug use, was totally inadequate.

Trevor Keogh of Turas, a training programme for stabilised drug users in Bluebell, south Dublin, said the Government had not followed through on promised funding.

Leon Dumbrell, who was homeless and who couldn’t write before she joined the project, said there was an urgent need for more programmes like Turas.

Marie Hanlon of Bonnybrook Parents Support Group in north Dublin said they were seeing suicides by cocaine addicts.

Minister of State with responsibility for drugs Noel Ahern said his department received this week a 37% increase in the drugs budget for 2006, rising from €31.5 million to €43m.