ILLEGAL DRUG USE - URGENT WAKE-UP CALL NEEDED

JOHN CURRAN, the minister in charge of the National Drug Strategy
admits that the approach has failed in its objective so far.

He wants the use of illegal drugs to be seen as socially unacceptable
like drink driving.

For too long people tolerated drink driving, but the carnage on our
roads served as a wake-up call. The victims were often young people
overcome by the influence of alcohol and a sense of bravado. Their
deaths were tragic but even more tragic were the deaths of so many
innocent people killed by drunken drivers.

Those using illegal drugs are not only recklessly endangering
themselves but also endangering others, because their behaviour is
funding the gangsters behind the daily murders.

Describing such behaviour as antisocial is inadequate, because it
obscures the obscene depravity of what has been happening.

A survey by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs last January
concluded that the lifetime use of illegal drugs rose from 19% in 2004
to 24% in 2007. Thus almost a quarter of the people surveyed admitted
to engaging in illegal drug taking.

The minister feels that the National Drugs Strategy has failed to get
the message across in relation to cocaine, which was targeted by the
media campaign called The Party's Over. This campaign, run by the
Health Service Executive, sought to exploit the impact of a number of
high-profile deaths of people while using cocaine.

A recent Eurobarometer survey of drug use among 15 to 24-year-olds
found that Irish youths have the second easiest access to cocaine, and
Ireland ranked fifth out of 32 European countries for cocaine use last
year in a UN report. While recent drug seizures should be warmly
welcomed, the level of seizure is also an indication of the amount of
drugs available, because the seizures normally reflect a fraction of
the amount of drugs available.

Nobody should be surprised therefore that the Government's campaign
against cocaine had not worked. They are not doing anything that has
not already failed dismally in other countries. The drink-driving
campaign was enforced with the aid of breath testing, penalty points
and advertising campaigns, but the cocaine campaign relied largely on
advertising.

That amounted to tacking the symptoms rather than the problem. There
was no new enforcement technique like the breath testing, or
consequence such as the penalty points.

Bolstering the media campaign with a drug awareness programme in
schools is unlikely to be any more effective unless adopted in
conjunction with a multifaceted approach, as in the case of drink driving.

In underprivileged areas the drug barons in their flash cars have
become the role models for gullible youngsters seeking an easy way out
of their poverty. So long as such gangsters are seen as role models,
there will always be people ready to make an easy euro by engaging in
such loathsome behaviour