BIRTH OF A DRUGS PROBLEM

Ballymena, for so long a byword for Politics, Paisley and Prosperity,
is having to come to terms with heroin, reports Stuart Clark.

Ten years ago Ballymena was pretty much heroin-free. Now, the Antrim
town is home to upwards of 500 addicts and ripe for an HIV epidemic.
You'd have thought that such grim figures would have brought about a
decisive response from the Northern Ireland Office but, nope, the best
they've come up with so far is a pounds 5.5 million drugs awareness
programme.

While no one can criticise the glossiness of their leaflets, the
prevailing mood in Liam Neeson's birthplace is that they've been
abandoned by the relevant authorities.

Everybody agrees that there's a problem, yet Northern Ireland
remains the only part of the UK without a needle exchange programme,
or mechanism whereby people wanting to get off it can go to their GP
for methadone. says Dr. Karen McElrath, an American academic who's
currently based at Queen's University. As a result, you've got
one-off needles being used as many as 30 times, and addicts begging
for treatment that doesn't exist here.

Ballymena's had the press attention, but the situation is just as
bad in Bangor and parts of Belfast.

Funded by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency,
McElrath has carried out the first major study of heroin use in the
Six Counties. In it, she talks to 35 addicts and makes some
interesting discoveries.

Well, they weren't so much discoveries as confirmation of things
that I'd already suspected,' she resumes. Contrary to the
impression that it's solely a product of social deprivation, half of
my interviewees were from middle and upper-income backgrounds. These
people don't always show up in research because the money they make
from work sustains their habit.

I didn't meet them myself, but a friend of mine is even aware of
two GPs who take heroin. Government doesn't like that being referred
to because it doesn't fit in with the stereotypical image of it
ruining lives. I'm not suggesting that it does or it doesn't, but
there are definitely users who are able to control their lifestyles
and be productive members of society.

Forced last year to take action, the RUC mounted a four-month
operation in the Ballymena area which involved 100 officers and
yielded nine arrests. Despite recovering a large amount of heroin,
availability on the street remained the same.

It was something of a hollow victory then when Detective
Superintendent David Thompson commented afterwards that, We want to
send a message to individuals involved in this trade that police
intend to attack this problem robustly. We know the heroin scene
centres around Ballymena and from this there is a district network.

The drugs problem in this town is quite substantial, although in
the overall scheme of things it is still well down the scale compared
to mainland Britain.

What they don't have to contend with cross-channel is the spectre of
paramilitary violence. That was brought in to sharp focus last week
when a man was injured in a bomb explosion near Derry. Although
details at the time of going to press remain sketchy, it appears the
device went off when the 22-year-old picked up a bag that had been
left in a country lane.

This is like something you'd read about in America, says the
Mayor of Derry, Pat Ramsey. The drug industry here is taking a
direction now which no one in their right minds can want.

Paramilitary involvement is a factor which Karen McElrath
acknowledges, but has chosen not to pursue. Firstly, I was more
interested in the health aspects, and secondly, I knew that as soon as
I asked those sort of questions the shutters would come down, she
explains. Getting people to talk to me was difficult enough without
introducing another deterrent.

Her calls for a needle exchange programme are echoed by David Tweed, a
Ballymena councillor who's involved in the Together drugs counselling
service. He recently told The Irish News: I don't care what anybody says,
the problem is escalating to the extent that we have small groups using the
same needle. When that happens you cause a virus and that will spread. In
Belfast at least 75% of the people who have the AIDS virus come from
Ballymena.

Then there's the threat posed by prostitution.

Young people, both male and female, are selling their body for a
`hit', warns one of his Together co-workers, David Warwick.
When that starts we're looking at AIDS right between the eyes. The
prospect of AIDS frightens me.

Having realised that there's only so much you can do with leaflets,
the Northern Ireland Office are expected to OK a pilot needle exchange
programme which could be in place by the autumn. Karen McElrath's
response to the news is surprisingly muted.

If the information I've received is correct, and they run it out of
chemists, it won't work, she warns. Ballymena's such a small
place that when you go in to get a new needle, someone you know is
almost certain to see you. There has to be a greater degree of
anonymity.

Ballymena isn't the only town that's recently had to come to terms
with junkie culture.

It's sad to relate but heroin is now being used by young people in
Limerick, says Father Joe Young, a community-based priest who's
worked in the past with solvent abusers. The Garda Drug Squad need
the resources and manpower to wipe it out before it becomes a major
problem here.

Brought in from Cork and Dublin, it's available in the city's housing
estates for as little as pounds 15.

It turned up during the 80's, and disappeared just as quickly when
the INLA threatened to beat the crap out of anyone who was dealing
it, proffers a local source. Now, no one gives a tuck, which is
why the glue and E brigade have moved on to the hard stuff. There's
half-a-dozen parts of Limerick I could go to now and be guaranteed to
score.

HEROIN: The HOT PRESS Findings:

* It's now available in virtually every part of the
country

* Wraps of it can be bought for as little as pounds
10

* The last set of annual figures show the Gardai dealing with 884
heroin-related cases

* Despite an increase in seizures, supplies at street level remain
constant.

* Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that doesn't operate a
needle exchange programme

SIDE BAR:

Smack Of Ages

Brown, smack, horse, skag

The name may change on a regular basis but heroin, in one guise or
another, has been associated with the Devil's Music for almost 80 years.

The drug of choice in Harlem during the 20's jazz explosion, it later
found favour among such giants of the genre as John Coltrane, Miles
Davies and Billie Holiday who struggled with addiction for most of her
adult life.

Thought of as a 'black drug until it provided the subject matter
for William Burrough's 'Junky', it earned its rock'n'roll stripes
during the 60's when Tim Hardin, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Tim
Buckley, Gram Parsons, David Crosby and Keith Richards were among
those who dabbled.

No matter that half of them died as a consequence, heroin has remained
the drug that rockers turn to when nothing else is extreme enough. Sid
Vicious, Johnny Thunders, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Kurt Cobain... the list
of casualties grows ever longer.