PUBLICANS WARNED NOT TO TOLERATE DRUG DEALING

A NUMBER of Dublin pubs have been put on 28 day notice to rid their
premises of drug users and dealers in the latest crackdown by gardai on the
drug scourge in the capital.

Publicans risk losing their licence for good if they fail to meet the
deadline for getting their house in order.

A senior garda involved in the crackdown, codenamed Operation Nightcap,
said it was getting the message through to pub owners that they could no
longer turn a blind eye to the conduct of their customers.

"We're not accusing publicans of being involved in drug dealing, but we are
saying they can't facilitate it and claim ignorance of it," said Detective
Inspector John Fitzpatrick, head of the Drugs Unit at Dublin's Pearse
Street station.

"They're getting a 28 day warning notice first but they'll find themselves
in a lot of trouble if they don't comply with it."

Operation Nightcap is one of a number of initiatives implemented by anti
drugs officers in recent months in the city which controls the national
drugs supply.

Operation Cleanstreet, using undercover officers to catch dealers in the
act by buying drugs on the street, has resulted in 120 arrests in the
Pearse Street jurisdiction alone.

Two other programmes focused on dealers profiting from particularly
vulnerable people have been equally successful.

Almost 40 people have been arrested under Operation Tap, which targets
dealers selling to prostitutes and homeless people. Over 30 have been
picked up for supplying illegal and prescription drugs in the vicinity of
city centre treatment centres.

But Detective Inspector Fitzpatrick told the Dublin meeting of the ongoing
National Drugs Strategy Review that law enforcement alone was not
sufficient to tackle the drugs problem.

He said waiting lists had to be eliminated for methadone programmes for
those addicted to heroin, the number one problem drug in the city, and he
called for an increase in the number of residential rehabilitation and
counselling services for addicts.

He also said local authorities should support former addicts who wished to
relocate out of the area where their problem began.

"Old habits return when they go back to old friends in their old community.
It's a nightmare waiting to start all over again."

The meeting heard, however, that while extra services were needed for
addicts, there was a difficulty finding staff to run existing services.

The East Coast Area Health Board, one of the three health boards covering
Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare, is short 23 of the 70 staff it should have to
run its drugs and AIDS programmes.

Junior Minister in charge of the drugs strategy, Eoin Ryan, told the
meeting the review of the National Drugs Strategy would be complete by the
autumn and a new strategy would be in place by the end of the year.

Further review meetings take place in Athlone this Thursday and in Sligo on
Friday, and a meeting for the North Eastern Health Board area will take
place in Dublin next Monday.