CAPITAL IN DRUG CRISIS

The Merchant's Quay Project in Dublin reported last week that 600 new
users of hard drugs had contacted the agency in the past year. Baz is
shoplifting, burgling, pick-pocketing and is open to doing the
occasional mugging while he waits to get on a methadone maintenance
course. When -- or if -- he gets on a course, he won't need much
money, but for the present he badly needs cash to fund his pounds
80-per-day heroin habit.

Monday last was a typically pathetic day in the life of the 24-year-old
junkie from Tallaght: "I woke up with only a fiver, got a bus into town,
borrowed pounds 15 off a mate and bought a bag of gear [heroin].

"It's 2pm now and if nothing turns up -- a poorly-locked bicycle, a
car with a briefcase, an unlocked apartment block -- by 5pm, I'll go
around the shops. And then I'll go up to the flats and get another bag
of gear."

Baz casually described a recent handbag snatch from a woman he
attacked in a side street off O'Connell Street in Dublin.

"She wouldn't let go, so I had to drag her along the ground for a bit.
There was only pounds 60 in it... When you get the gear into you, it's
only then that you think about it. I thought: `Yeah, I've done a bad
thing. But fuck it, I'm better now'."

He points out that there are worse out there. One of his associates is
a notorious low life who robbed a fellow addict by using a coat hanger
to extract a batch of heroin that had been concealed inside his body.
"I remember doing a jump-over with him and the shopkeeper wouldn't
give us the money, so he grabbed the shopkeeper by the hair and just
kept banging his head off the counter."

That was one of his most brutal crimes. "When you're sick, you'll do
anything. You're up all night, you're in tears, you're sweating, hot,
cold, you've toothache, earache, your whole system is shattered;
drinking [alcohol] only makes it worse. Nothing works except gear or
Phy (Physeptone, a brand of methadone, which is a heroin
substitute)."

Baz has been waiting four weeks now to get on a methadone maintenance
programme. More than 400 addicts are on the waiting list and most,
like Baz, are engaged in a vicious cycle of crime while they await the
services of the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA). The average
waiting time is three months -- and by then the addict may not have
the motivation to go on a programme.

Methadone is not a cure-all, but it generally stabilises addicts. It
is a long-acting, narcotic painkiller that wards off acute withdrawal
symptoms and reduces craving for heroin.

Up to 40 per cent of people on maintenance courses take up jobs and a
1991 US study suggested that 79 per cent quit the endless grind of
criminal activity that was previously needed to finance their heroin
habit.

However, the synthetic narcotic is itself highly addictive. A study by
Ray Byrne of Dublin Institute of Technology found that only 6 to 10
per cent of addicts on methadone programmes detoxify successfully.
Methadone is also highly dangerous. Byrne found that methadone was
implicated in 37 deaths in Dublin in 1998, compared to 36 for heroin.

However, Byrne noted: "The relative stability of the addiction in
treatment is preferable to the nightmare of addiction untreated."

Around 4,700 people are on methadone treatment programmes in greater
Dublin. But an estimated 8,000 heroin addicts are not receiving any
treatment, and the number of new addicts is increasing steadily.

The Merchant's Quay Project revealed last week that around 600 new
hard drug users contacted the voluntary agency, which deals primarily
with heroin addicts, in the last 12 months. "Despite all the
investment over the past few years, the problem is still getting
worse," said its director Tony Geoghegan.

Andre Lyder of the Coalition of Communities Against Drugs criticised
the "lack of accountability" in the Garda handling of the heroin
problem. Many dealers are now back, openly selling smack in city flat
complexes, and Lyder argues: "We need an independent police authority,
a Patten Report on the Garda."

Garda and criminal sources agree that heroin dealing is now organised
more professionally than ever before. Most of the big-time dealers in
the worst hit areas of Ballyfermot, Crumlin, Dolphin's Barn, Inchicore
and the north inner city, are several steps removed from the product
and are not drug users themselves. Some are second generation dealers
who have learned from their parents' mistakes.

Detectives believe the heroin market is worth up to pounds 1 million
per day. Yet the biggest smack seizure made to date was worth only
pounds 8 million -- in contrast with much-trumpeted cannabis busts
worth pounds 20 million to pounds 150 million. However, garda chiefs
have long argued that heroin is a social deprivation problem that
cannot be policed out of existence.

The junior minister with responsibility for the national drugs
strategy, Eoin Ryan TD, admits there is a gap in the services for addicts.

"We are going to have to increase the number of places in residential
programmes," he told The Sunday Business Post.

The state has only 100 residential drug treatment places at present --
one for every 130 addicts. Drugs counsellors generally agree that
residential treatment is the only means by which most addicts will
permanently quit opiates -- heroin, cocaine and methadone.

Christy Goslin is a living example of the effectiveness of residential
treatment. Two years ago, Goslin (39), originally from Dorset Street,
was a smack addict of 19 years standing. Today he is drug free and is
about to begin his second year of a diploma course in Applied Social
Studies at St Patrick's College, Carlow.

He is one of 12 addicts to complete the 12-month residential treatment
programme at St Francis Farm, Co Carlow, run with the assistance of
the Merchant's Quay Project. All 12 are still drug free.

"I never thought I'd have a chance to give up gear and end up going to
college. I don't have much money but I'm now doing what I want to do,"
he said. He has pounds 90 a week for rent, food, clothes, travel,
school books and fees.

St Francis Farm removed him from his old drugs environment, helped him
deal with underlying emotional and psychological problems and then
worked on encouraging personal responsibility.

Goslin finally sought help when he found himself cycling down Thomas
Street in Dublin "with pounds 200 worth of heroin inside me from four
shots that morning". Some of his worst moments include "running around
the inner city after drug dealers looking for gear, dragging my five
kids with me".

Ironically, Goslin found himself in Mountjoy Prison last year because
he could not meet maintenance payments to his ex-partner while he was
getting treatment for his drug addiction in St Francis Farm.

"Before I could even speak to the court, the judge gave me a week
inside," he said. "I was taken out of a treatment centre and put into
a cell with four people who were all using smack. But I didn't touch
any ... I love what I'm doing now. I'm happy."