Prevention the best policy to tackle drugs menace

THE drugs problem is a cancer eating away at the very heart of our society and destroying the lives of thousands of our young people.

Those who push drugs on them are the greatest scourge in our communities and deserve nothing but the appropriate punishment to meet the crimes they are committing against society. They are destroying the lives of many of our young people.

There is a close correlation between drug use and crime. The fact that heroin users in this country are three times more likely than non-users to have been arrested for robbery or assault speaks volumes. While rehabilitation clinics and centres for recovering addicts, etc, have a vital role to play, greater emphasis must be placed on preventive measures. Surely it would be far more effective to prevent young people becoming hooked on drugs rather than having to treat them afterwards with all the associated problems such as drug-related crime.

National guidelines similar to those for the juvenile liaison system would be especially effective in this regard.

We need to adopt a special approach to prevent young people from developing a drugs habit.

In addition, we need to provide more specialist facilities separate from adult facilities. It is not helpful if young people experimenting with drugs or addicted to them end up in the same treatment facilities as adults. It is important that we have co-ordination between all forces, the garda, the navy, army and customs.

We have not given this problem the priority it deserves and unless we do so lives will continue to be destroyed. If we put our minds to tackling this problem, there is no reason we cannot succeed in turning the tide against this terrible trade.

Cllr Noel Collins

‘St Jude’s’

Midleton

Co Cork