Local policing best way to beat drug barons
While the Garda Drug Squad have had their successes against the ‘barons’, the impact of the seizures is insignificant in the context of the volume and extent of this trade.
A major flaw in the fight against drugs is the absence of local community garda liaison officers in most regions of the country; this also applies to other forms of crime.
Justice Minister Michael McDowell has consistently overlooked the extensive range of high-powered guns and other weapons of death the drug barons have used and displayed over recent years.
As soon as the gardaí seize such weapons, as they have done at great personal risk, replacements are smuggled in with the next consignment of illicit drugs.
The cost to the state as a result of the drug trade is immense when the consequences of the use of such drugs is health damage, inability to work, family disruption and crime to feed addiction.
Instead of being contributors to the national purse as taxpayers, young people become liabilities on their families, the social welfare system and the Department of Health.
The miseries and murders arising from the drug trade over the last ten years show that the battle against the barons is not being won.
Why are new tactics not being used or the old and tested methods of intensive local community policing employed?
It is time local gardaí and local communities got to know each other better and, in co-operation, rid the state of illicit drugs and those who ply that evil trade.
Let Government declare 2006 ‘illict drugs riddance year’ and initiate a well resourced, properly planned strategy that will turn young people away from frequenting places and people associated with drugs through peer pressure.
John J Hassett
Croke Street
Thurles
Co Tipperary
