DRUGS CRISIS: The Northern Scene

RISE IN USE OF 'RECREATIONAL' DRUGS

The so-called dance drugs like cannabis, ecstasy, LSD and speed are the
most common in the North, and their use is rising, NUALA HAUGHEY reports

Saturday night was in full swing when the ambulance pulled up at Belfast's
Club Heat to take a clubber in his early 20s to the Royal Victoria
Hospital. He had taken GBH, also known as liquid ecstasy, and four bottles
of beer. Feeling ill, he had gone outside for fresh air and was standing
shivering in his black T-shirt and combat trousers when the club
supervisor, Frank McGoldrick, approached him.

"When I saw him outside, his pupils were very small and he was drifting in
and out of reality," said Mr McGoldrick. "I thought he was on opiates like
heroin at first. It's the most concerned I've ever been about an individual."

GBH, an anaesthetic with a sedative effect, carries a high risk of overdose
if mixed with alcohol. The man, who had taken half of a £20 deal which he
bought before going to the club, was later discharged from hospital.

Club Heat, a Saturday night dance in the predominantly-gay Parliament
complex in Dunbar Street on the outskirts of the city, is one of three
Belfast clubs which hires club supervisors at the weekends.

"It would be naive of us to say that nobody who comes through that door has
drugs in them," said the Parliament's promoter, Zhanne Watson, stressing
that drugs and drug dealing are not tolerated on the premises. "Our
attitude is that if we can go one step towards looking after people when
they are here in case they get into difficulties, then we will do our best."

Mr McGoldrick's company, Frank Talks, has a team of 15 young club
supervisors who are trained in basic first aid for looking after cuts and
twisted ankles as well as drug awareness.

"Some people have said to us that what we're doing is like advocating drug
use. But we're not," said Mr McGoldrick. "All we are doing is facing the
fact that thousands of people in Northern Ireland will be taking drugs at
the weekend when they go clubbing. We want to make sure that nobody dies."

Research shows that teenagers from rural towns like Banbridge, Omagh,
Craigavon, Lisburn, Antrim, Coleraine and Ballymena are using cannabis,
ecstasy, LSD and speed (amphetamines), respectively the four most popular
drugs in the North.

One in three 14 to 17-year-olds in the North has tried drugs or solvents,
and three-quarters felt it was easy to get hold of drugs, according to a
survey by the Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland of 3,500 young
people in 100 schools last year. Three people, from Belfast, Newtownards,
Co Down, and Beragh, Co Tyrone, have died from ecstasy to date.

The RUC drug squad's seizure figures show how the quantity of
"recreational" drugs entering the North rose dramatically during the 1990s
as the rave and dance culture took hold. The quantity of cannabis seized
last year was 12 times higher than in 1990; from no seizures of ecstasy in
1990, more than £1 million worth was intercepted last year; seizures of LSD
increased 220-fold during the same period and those of speed went from less
than 1 kg to 24 kg, costing £240,000.

Seizures of cocaine have gone from none in 1990 to £43,200 worth last year.
While heroin supply is still limited, and largely confined to Ballymena,
RUC seizures of the drug last year were six times higher than in 1994.

Before the early 1990s cannabis was the main drug in the North, followed a
long way behind by speed and LSD. Solvents were the most accessible
substances for teenagers to abuse. In 1991 nine solvent-related deaths were
recorded. There were none in 1995, although two deaths from ecstasy were
registered in that year.

Heroin has never taken grip, despite the fact that it has ravaged
generations of families in Dublin. The traditional theory for this is that
the North's tight security has kept hard drugs out. RUC sources admit
privately that this is an urban myth, and it is the intolerance of
paramilitaries, in particular the IRA, to heroin, which has kept it out.

While both loyalist and republican paramilitary groups raise funds by
"licensing" drug dealers in their areas provided they receive a cut of the
profits, most draw the line at hard drugs such as heroin.

The head of the RUC drug squad, Supt David Thompson, said there is no
evidence that major heroin suppliers in the South are trying to get a
foothold in the market in the North. He also acknowledges that "there's no
particular thing that we have done on the security aspect which has stopped
heroin coming in but has allowed other drugs to come in."

The Health Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland, a government-funded body,
has recognised there has "perhaps been some complacency" in the knowledge
that the North's drug problem is not as bad as in Britain, the Republic,
western Europe and the US.

Until four years ago the British government's drugs strategy in the North
was low-profile in terms of preventive measures and public education, an
approach which drug workers criticise as tantamount to non-existent.

In 1994, a Central Drugs Co-ordination Unit was set up to review the drugs
strategy, and this led to a policy statement and the setting up of the
Central Co-ordinating Group for Action Against Drugs in June 1995. The
government allocated £1.6 million for a three-year drugs campaign which
includes research, public information, drugs education and the
establishment of local drugs co-ordination teams in the four health and
social services board areas.

Drugs workers are, however, critical that funding for treatment services
has not kept up with demand. The director of the Northern Ireland Community
Addiction Service, Ms Carol Weir, said little has changed in recent years
in the provision of treatment services to take account of the North's
growing illegal drug problem.

"Northern Ireland has practically no treatment services for drug users. If
you phoned me up and said you thought your brother or sister had a problem
with drug abuse, I would have a problem getting help for that person," she
said.

There are no figures on the numbers of drug users in the North. There were
163 registered addicts in 1997, 43 of whom joined the list in that year. Dr
Diana Patterson, a consultant psychiatrist at Shaftesbury Square Hospital
in Belfast which deals with addiction, said this figure could be multiplied
by five to give a more accurate number. But drugs workers say even this is
a conservative estimate.