NO QUICK FIX FOR ADDICTS

THE world renowned Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, probably
first became known to Irish audiences via the make believe world of the
movies.

In the film Outbreak, two infectious disease experts - handsome and
beautiful respectively - raced against the clock to save an American town -
apple pie and white picket fences - from a deadly and wildly contagious
virus.

The killer bug came from a monkey in the South American jungle, the baddies
were the Government who wanted its existence hushed up, and the hero and
heroine - romantically linked of course - found the cure just in time to
stop the army bombing the helpless townsfolk into oblivion.

If only it was so simple in real life. But the reality behind the presence
of a CDC expert in Dublin this week is rather less sensational and
considerably more grim. Heroin addicts are dying. It's a painful,
distressing death. They're mostly young - one of the victims was just 21.
And they're all from parts of Dublin city where white picket fences are only
found around graves.

After a week of startling bulletins featuring rising death counts, rapid
response plans and talk of toxicology tests and lab reports, attention is
now beginning to focus on the wider picture.

For while scientists in white coats squint through microscope lenses and
doctors and nurses fight to keep patients alive, the realisation is starting
to dawn that for all the involvement of hospitals, clinics and labs, this is
not really a medical problem.

It is a social problem, and one whose origin is much more difficult to
tackle than the bacteria or contaminant killing the addicts is likely to be
when it is eventually identified.

Hughie McGeown, the chairman of COCAD, the Coalition of Communities Against
Drugs, would love to make pronouncements about community outcry over the
deaths.

He'd be delighted to say people were banging down his door demanding public
meetings or a march on Leinster House.

But the reality is that they aren't shocked by the deaths. "It might be some
mystery illness now, but if isn't that it's Hepatitis C or AIDS or suicide.
We're burying kids every week. Official Ireland may throw its hands up and
say this is dreadful, but it's not unexpected in the places where it's
happening. People are immune to it."

Immunity has come from repeatedly damning statistics. Out of the 6,043 drug
users who sought treatment at drug clinics around the country in 1998, the
last year for which records are complete, 4,297 were addicted to heroin.

The next nearest group is terms of size were cannabis users who numbered 642
but tellingly, the next largest group again were the 331 addicted to
unprescribed methadone, the heroin substitute dispensed by clinics,
supposedly only by prescription.

Of the 6,043, the vast majority, 4,572, were from Dublin. The biggest groups
were categorised as coming from the north inner city (687), south inner city
(600), Drumcondra including Ballymun (450), Ballyfermot (352), Clondalkin
(326) and Tallaght (310), all areas traditionally associated with
deprivation, unemployment, welfare reliance, early school leaving and crime.

These are only the people who came for treatment. The rule of thumb
recommends taking the official figure, multiplying it by three and not being
surprised if that's still an underestimate.

Hughie McGeown believes the figures would be more accurate if addicts had a
realistic opportunity to get treatment.

"The health boards and the addiction services are totally inadequate for
what is happening. You can't tell someone hooked on heroin they'll have to
wait six months for a bed in a treatment centre - six months is a lifetime
for an addict."

It's not just the health services that let them down either. According to
Hughie, who lives in Clondalkin, arrangements for policing, education and
training are equally inadequate.

"The Celtic Tiger is a fallacy up here. They put up 10,000 houses and no
library, no bank, no clinic. Kids don't even dream about third level
education here. They don't know what it is to plan for a career.

"Up here the drug dealers are local heroes. I hate them with a passion but
others see them as making a good living out of what's happening around them,
and what's wrong with that?"

Heroin may be the curse of the community but the killer is apathy. "They
nearly give you a medal here if you rear your kid to 16 without them taking
drugs. It's the norm instead of the exception. They say isn't it great, he's
17 and clean. They don't even realise what they're saying any more or how
horrendous it is."

For Hughie, the dealers are only small fry in the scandal. The real crime is
that public officials and politicians were taking money from property
developers involved in elite developments while vast neighbourhoods of
working class people suffered the results of bad planning and weak social
policy.

"In the last local election 18% turned out to vote here. That shows how much
faith people have in politicians.

"When they talk about how much they're spending on this and that for drug
addicts, I get mad. What they spend on addiction programmes here is not for
the well being of addicts - it's about law and order.

"It's to stop the kids going up to Lucan and Castleknock and robbing the
people's nice houses. If the priority of our health service is to stop kids
robbing, that's not much of a service."