True cost of cocaine in our society

CONCERNS over the direct link between cocaine and violence in local communities will be heightened by a major new report showing that the killer drug is destroying lives in all sections of Irish society.

According to the second Overview of Cocaine Use in Ireland, treatment of addicts and the number of arrests and seizures have gone up significantly in recent years.

Community groups at the coalface can be forgiven for accusing the Government of doing little to address the cocaine crisis. Evidence of the explosion is seenevery day in headlines of drug wars, killings, and ofgarda seizures.

In a sign of the times, garda hauls multiplied from 206 seven years ago to 968 in 2005. Customs seizures also rose from 12 in 2000 to 67 in 2004.

Based on the yardstick that roughly 10% of drugs are intercepted, it is painfully clear the gardaí are seeingonly the tip of the drugs iceberg.

This was borne out recently by a DCU researcher who found that every bank note tested in a sample of bank notes in Dublin was contaminated with cocaine. In another telling indicator of its inexorable spread, a three-fold increase was recorded between 1998 and 2003 in the number of people presenting themselves for treatment with cocaine as their primary problem.

The stark reality is that cocaine has penetrated every layer of society. Of great concern is the growing trend of so-called “recreational use” by people ranging in age between 15 and 34.

Compiled by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs (NACD) and the National Drugs Strategy Team, the survey is the most comprehensive ever conducted in Ireland. Predictably, it found a dramatic increase in the number of cocaine-related offences, with prosecutions under the Misuse of Drugs Act soaring from 180 in 2000 to 1,224 in 2005.

Unsurprisingly, there is no reference to the recentexchange of fire between Justice Minister Michael McDowell and the judiciary over the Tánaiste’s allegation that judges were soft on crime and that sentences handed down for drug offences were too lenient.

However, launching the report yesterday, junior minister Noel Ahern, who is responsible for the national drugs strategy, described the risks associated withcocaine as “alarming”. The dangers are exacerbated when it is combined with alcohol and other substances.

Violence invariably erupts when addicts resort to robbery to feed their habit. According to NACD chairman, Dr Des Corrigan, all layers of society are affected but the impact on some communities is more severe. As he put it, “communities are experiencing the consequences in terms of sharp increases in public disturbance, noise, intimidation and violence”.

With many users later developing major health problems, there is an urgent need to get across what the NACD describes as “credible and unambiguous health promotion and harm reduction messages”.

Further compounding the existing hazards on Ireland’s death-ridden roads, the study reveals a “marked” increase in the number of drivers who tested positive for cocaine. Among other consequences of cocaine use, personal relationships are disrupted, productivity is reduced, jobs are lost, income dries up and physical or mental health, or both, break down.

Contrary to popular perceptions, cocaine is not confined to working class areas of Dublin, Limerick, Cork or other cities and towns. Thanks to the Celtic Tiger, the range of this deadly drug now extends from sprawling housing estates in deprived urban blackspots to the leafy suburbs of middle class Ireland.

The big problem facing Irish society is that vast quantities of cocaine are being smuggled by unscrupulous criminals who don’t care a damn about the living hell they are inflicting on their victims.