THE LAW IS THE PROBLEM, NOT HEROIN

Brendan O'connor Says It's Time For Uncomfortable Choices On Hard Drugs Too

DRUGS kill and drugs destroy lives. For example, a heroin addict was jailed
for three years last Wednesday for selling ecstasy to a teenager, Alison
Davies, who died after taking it. Stephen "Mousey" O'Connor was condemned
in court as "a drug pusher, dealing in death" and there is no doubt that he
was in some way responsible for the teenager's death.

But Stephen O'Connor was not simply a dealer in death. Stephen O'Connor has
been taking drugs since he was 14. He has been a heroin addict since he was
16. As a heroin addict, O'Connor, like many other heroin addicts, was
forced to buy off the street the drug to which he was addicted.

Heroin addiction is a full-time job, a pretty much constant quest for more.
Users find it impossible to work and so are forced into a life of crime to
feed their habit. O'Connor's habit has not only ruined his life but the
life of Alison Davis. You have to wonder how different things could have
been if O'Connor was given legally prescribed heroin. He might have been
able to lead a normal worthwhile life, would possibly have been weaned off
the drug by now. He would not be a criminal and he would not be, as the
court put it, "dealing in death".

The idea of legally prescribed heroin is not a new one. Up until 1968
doctors in Britain prescribed heroin to addicts. At that time there was
practically no black market in heroin in Britain and about 500 heroin
addicts. Now, with heroin available only on the black market, there are an
estimated half a million heroin addicts in Britain. In Dublin, there are
about 15,000 heroin addicts. Unlike those addicted to alcohol or
cigarettes, heroin addicts are seen not as sick people or unfortunate
victims, but largely as criminals.

The very act of buying and taking the drug to which they are addicted is a
criminal act. So too are the things they have to do to feed the habit the
theft, the prostitution, the drug-dealing. All these things are a direct
result of the illegal nature of heroin. Time and time again, experimental
programmes have shown that if these people had access to a supply of state
regulated heroin they would have the capacity to lead normal lives and the
crime rate would plummet.

But then how could the state be seen to distribute such a "dangerous" drug?
Well, you may find this difficult to believe but pure heroin does very
little psychological or physical damage. Like the crime we associate with
heroin, the health risks of heroin are largely a result of its illegality.

Most infections arise largely from the sharing of dirty needles. Blood
clots, abscesses and other infections are the result of impurities added to
drugs by the criminals who control the market. When a heroin addict in
Dublin injects heroin, he is also likely to be injecting sand, brickdust or
even drain cleaner. A user who takes an overdose is likely to do so because
it is impossible to gauge the purity of street heroin. No drug in history
has been rendered safer by putting its supply into the hands of criminals.

Heroin itself is not really a harmful drug. Certainly it is highly
addictive but apart from constipation and a little nausea in the early
stages (common side effects of any strong painkiller) it causes very little
physical harm.

INDEED if someone took double the recommended dose of paracetamol they
would risk organ failure and possibly death. Someone taking double their
dosage of pure heroin would suffer nothing more than a little drowsiness.
Heroin, or diamorphine, does not harm any organs or tissues or cause any
serious illness. You could say that it is the illegal nature of heroin that
causes such damage to users and to society.

The quest for, and use of, illegal heroin causes people to lose their
homes, their jobs, their families, their self-respect and ultimately their
health. And while you may be uncomfortable with the idea of the State
giving out heroin, bear in mind that the State already gives out methadone,
a heroin replacement widely acknowledged to be more addictive than heroin
and a drug that is often simply used in conjunction with heroin anyway.

A safe legal supply of heroin would cut out a huge amount of petty crime in
this country, it would disable organised crime here, it would safeguard the
health of heroin addicts and it would bring them into the bosom of the
medical profession. We will look back and think it was barbarous that we
condemned people, because of an illness born out of social deprivation, to
living a life in the shadows, on the street because of the hypocrisy of a
society where addictions of various kinds are, after all, endemic. The idea
of the State giving out heroin is an uncomfortable one, but is it any more
uncomfortable than casting heroin addicts aside, only noticing them when
they impinge on our world by stealing our handbags or selling our children
drugs? And uncomfortable as it is, decriminalised heroin is the only sane,
compassionate response to the blights of addiction and crime.