Patrick Donohoe calls for new thinking on the war on drugs.

We live in a world of perpetual war, it's never ending. It's almost 'part of our growing up. It pollutes our news media through the various mediums on a regular basis. One war that has been perpetually going on for just over a century now and one that has been widely socially acceptable is our 'war on drugs'. It is one that wider society sees as a necessary evil against the scourge of evil substances that we're led to believe gives addicts a chemical hook that enslaves their body in a zombie-like state rendering them useless and unfortunately this attitude has permeated throughout the world as a result of Nixon era reactionary domestic and foreign policy. It doesn't take much research to understand that this is not the case, and it is much more complex than that and has caused me to look at the regressive attitudes of fellow republicans who don't see the complexities of the situation with drugs and addictions, who advocate authoritarian solutions devoid of empathy and conjecture, that only do the opposite and exacerbate the problem.

But how did this drug war begin? Drugs weren't always illegal. Harry J. Anslinger is a man I've heard described as the most important man nobody has ever heard of. He was the leading light in the Federal Bureau of Narcotics subsumed that vast nationwide bureaucracy Federal Bureau of (alcohol) Prohibition after its decade long experiment that gave birth to modern international gangland cartels we know too well today. Anslinger was an overt racist that like-minded people in even 1920s America felt went too far. He freely used the 'n' word in his writings without a blink of an eye. Having fought a war against alcohol over a thirteen-year depression-era period and failing; he and his newly created department set about a war against cannabis and other drugs, ignoring most scientific studies at the time telling them they were wrong. The roots of the drug war can be found in the exploitation of racial tensions in the U.S. at the time. Anslinger ignoring the medical scientists perpetuated the myth that cannabis was driving women crazy and making them have sex with black men. Perish the thought. And other 'stronger' drugs were empowering the black negro to attack the poor unsuspecting white folk of Middle America. All rubbish, really. In contemporary times there has been a lot of anecdotal tales told about drugs and drug users with little resembling conjecture that haven't helped matters either.



The period prior to Anslinger's war on drugs, citizens with addiction issues received their drugs via prescription from their doctor for a small amount of money at their local chemist, a radical and highly successful method pioneered in the 1930s by a Californian doctor, Henry Smith Williams. Addicts received a diluted but medically pure form of the drug (which didn't give them lesions on their face etc.) and the clear majority were in full-time employment and functioning members of society. They didn't need to steal or turn to crime. That all ended with the advent of prohibition. Drug dealers and cartels were created overnight along with twenty thousand doctors and many more addicts dragged into the criminal justice system. Illegal substitutes flooded the market; addicts were now taking a dirty form of their drug and the price increased by 1000% in some cases. Addicts were now at the mercy of gangland figures who charged exorbitant prices meaning addicts now had to turn to crime, prostitution and begging to feed their habit and thus the new laws made criminals of ordinary members of the community and drove them underground into the hands of newly empowered dealers. A valuable lesson from history in the treatment of addicts was lost until the methods were revisited in the UK in the Liverpool satellite town of Widnes by Dr John Marks. Again the results were astounding with up to a 93% reduction in acquisition crime such as burglary, a massive reduction in street prostitution and gangland having their profits obliterated. This model was later adopted in the 1990s on a national basis in Switzerland - but not before the reactionaries in the Tory party shut the program down in the UK.

While rooted in racism the drug war was sustained by the train-of-thought that there was a 'chemical hook' that hijacked the body and enslaved it. The evidence of the pharmaceutical theory of addiction was an experiment on rats, which put a rat into an empty cage with two bottles. One with regular drinking water and one laced with cocaine or heroin, and in all cases the rat would turn to the drug-laced water and after a period would kill itself from taking the drugged water. This spawned an advertisement on American TV funded by the Partnership for a Drug Free America, which depicted a rat licking at a water bottle with the haunting voice-over explaining: "Only one drug is so addictive that nine out of ten laboratory rats will use it. And use it. And use it.... until they are dead". Dr. Bruce Alexander looked at this and saw an obvious flaw. The rats are in an empty cage, all alone. It reminded me of a comment I read from an addict who said, "addiction is a disease of loneliness". Dr. Alexander did his own experiment that would change the thinking of many on addiction and the myth of the simple 'chemical hook'. He made his own cage. But this time he included other rats, with the same water bottles. One with simple drinking water and the other bottle with water laced with heroin. Inside the cage were coloured balls, wheels to run around, and the best cheeses for them to eat. He aptly named the cage 'Rat Park'. They ate, played and had sex with each other and invariably the rats rarely went near the water bottle laced with drugs, unlike the rats in the empty cage and none took it until they died. They also took rats who has been in the empty cage for several weeks taking the heroin laced water and put them into Rat Park. The result: the rats would invariably, despite taking the drugged water for several weeks, would reject the heroin laced water once inside Rat Park and would bond with their fellow rats and few even exhibited signs of withdrawal from the drugged water they had been taking.

I can hear some say but sure that's only rats. But around the time of the Rat Park study there was a human form of the experiment happening in Southeast Asia - the Vietnam War. 20% of the U.S. soldiers in that conflict were addicted to heroin to escape the daily horrors unfolding before them. There were more Americans addicted to heroin in Vietnam than there was in the U.S. itself. Some visiting American politicians reported home that a lot of their troops were more likely to die from heroin addiction than from combat itself. The American people were shocked and disturbed with the thoughts of hundreds of thousands of junkies suddenly swarming on their cities and towns at the end of the war, as they believed the theory that heroin will have hijacked their bodies and it wasn't going to be pretty. That wasn't quite what happened, though. The soldiers came home. They were no longer in the jungle with people trying to kill them any longer. They reconnected with their loved ones and friends and it was found that 95% of them, within one single year, simply stopped and those who went into treatment were no more inclined to stop their addiction than those who didn't. The remaining 5% were found to have been victims of severe PTSD, unstable and abusive childhoods, or had been addicts to begin with when they went to war.




So, whether you're a rat in an empty cage, or a soldier in a jungle in Southeast Asia with people you can't see trying to kill you, it illuminated clearly that drug addiction is not as simple as a chemical hook. It showed why, while 90% of people who take drugs do not become addicted, some are susceptible to becoming addicted and that is more to do with their cage - their environment - and their disconnection from their family, friends and wider society and the remedy to this isn't 'tough love' but a more benevolent, benign approach that involves focusing on the cause of the addiction, which involves not just their present 'cage' but the other cause of addiction; childhood trauma, usually involving physical and/or sexual abuse, with the focus being re-connection.

Adverse Childhood Experiences was a detailed study commissioned into the long-term effects of child abuse and found those who experienced traumatic events as a child were two to four times more like to become a drug addict. It found two-thirds of injection drug abuse was due to some childhood trauma, so in effect, childhood abuse was as likely to bring about drug addiction, as obesity was to cause heart disease. Another study followed children from the age of five to eighteen and looked at the quality of parenting and its effects on children and how bad parenting could increase a child's future dependency on drugs. They found that children who had parents who were disengaged and who could be cruel were increasingly more likely to develop heavy drug use in their adult years in comparison to children who had parents who were loving and caring towards them. They found as they got older it meant they found it harder to develop loving relationships and found it easier to be angry, distressed and impulsive a lot of the time. One addict had said to Dr Gabor Maté, a leading voice on addictions, that when she first took heroin "it was like a warm hug, like a mother hugging a baby".



The criminalisation of addicts, which is a barrier to them reconnecting with society enslaving them with a criminal record, which is a permanent barrier to them seeking employment. Portugal has done the opposite with their decriminalisation and reconfigured their thinking instead concentrating their resources, not on the criminalisation and jailing of addicts, but trying to reconnect addicts by giving financial incentives to businesses to hire ex-addicts. And, of course, with a helping hand addicts largely reabsorbed themselves back into society and would leave their addiction behind. Switzerland, a country as conservative, if not more than, Ireland completely ended prohibition and created a system where addicts would no longer have a relationship with a drug dealer, but instead with their local GP. Those with the most extreme addiction issues who have previously failed a number of other treatment programs would be prescribed medical grade heroin in a supervised facility that resulted in a huge reduction in HIV infections and resulted in zero overdose deaths. Some other results from Switzerland's ending of prohibition were startling. It cut heroin addiction in half and with addicts no longer needing to steal to feed their habit burglaries, muggings and other assorted serious crimes were reduced by a massive 90% in some instances. Gangland lost its army of street level user/dealers and as a result, of there being no incentive to sell heroin, it became increasing hard to find at street level. The number of new addition addicts plummeted. Another socially positive outcome of these facilities is a massive burden lifted of the already overstretched paramedic and ER services. Would you want a close relative having a delayed ambulance, or not having immediate medical attention in an ER because medical and human resources are tied up in emergencies that otherwise are containable and manageable in facilities designed for quick response and specialist care.




The proponents of not just continuing the drug war in Ireland, but extending it further, scoff at the idea of safe injection centres, which will see the preventable deaths of 200+ addicts who die of overdoses in Ireland every year continue. In Switzerland 68% of HIV infection were due to injection drug use. Now it stands at 5%. We are literally condemning addicts to death and disease with our archaic drug laws. If opiates can be prescribed for physical pain, why not for psychological pain and trauma? I've seen addicts being described as "selfish scum" from those same reactionary champions of the drug war. The thought that ending prohibition on those suffering from addiction and them receiving 'free heroin' sends some over the edge, neglecting the results generated in other countries. You see giving addicts clean heroin in a supervised medical environment gives them an opportunity to leave the criminal life behind and thus having to no longer take dirty drugs allows them to become functioning citizens again and was found in Switzerland that over time as this helped them become more connected and develop bonds again with their family and friends etc they would simply begin to take smaller dosages eventually stopping completely all by themselves. It's worth noting right wing elements in Switzerland have twice tried to revert the laws back towards a criminalisation policy and prohibition with it both times being roundly rejected, with over two-thirds support to keep it as it is. They don't want to go back, so why will we not even go there? The drug laws in Ireland as they stand are driving those who have addictions underground and empowering gangland. We all want to see an end to gangland so why not cut off their supply-chain and put them out of business?

I have, and always will, identity myself as a republican. I was raised one and feel it in my blood twenty-four hours of the day. But I feel a disconnect with what republicanism has become. When I read the findings of my rudimentary level research it forced me to look at my own outlook on life and society. I realised we all have our own addictions in some form outside of the "norms”; our phones; social media; work; shopping etc. In a wider context, we live in a society that is full of addiction and we in some way look at addicts in fear because of our own vulnerability to addiction. We look at addiction with a narrow lens - the individual. The problem is with the individual and they themselves must sort themselves out and at the same time we judge them as morally flawed. Those who view the issue in a wider prism argue for what some call the "social recovery" where we look beyond the threats to addicts and use of force and look to build a society away from the hyper-individualism where people don't feel so alone, and people within society look for connectivity from each other and not from consumption.

When we talk of society, that means everybody, and that includes republicans. We are always looking for the next thing to endear ourselves to our communities, sometimes, to beat the propaganda of Sinn Féin and others who use terms such as 'anti-community elements' to describe us so-called dissidents. To be blunt, the drugs war has been a handy vehicle for some, as working class communities have largely felt the brunt of the criminality that stems from the illegal addiction game so naturally a community hurt by the effects of the addiction business have sought reactionary methods to deal with it and republicans to some degree have exploited this. Why I feel somewhat disconnected from modern day republicanism is the lack in foresight in dealing with anything. Like the obsession with militarism from some who see republicanism starting and ending with that. It’s no surprise then that republicans’ natural reaction to the drugs issue is to target drug dealers and victimise and shame addicts on social media etc for drug use; it's very archetypal of republicans. A comrade explained it well that when your only weapon for problem-solving is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.


But it is worth noting that middle class people statistically drink more alcohol and take more illegal drugs than those from working class communities, yet who do the state aim their war on drugs at? What community? Yet republicans, who see themselves as the vanguard of working class communities promote and call for authoritarian clampdowns in a war aimed at their community solely. It's a handy vehicle for the state to keep down those they are happy to do so to. Look to the United States for another example of this. The black community make up only 19% of the drug users and dealers there, yet they make up nearly 70% of those who are convicted for drugs-related offences. It reminded me of an incident when Republican Senator Jesse Helms, a huge proponent of prosecuting the drugs war, was on a CNN phone-in show when a caller came on to thank him "for everything you've done to help keep the niggers down." His response was to salute at the camera saying: "Well, thank you, I think." Can we thank Irish republicans for helping keep those most vulnerable in our own community down?

I had my own personal awakening and writing this made me think back to how badly I treated the addicts within my own family. The hurtful things I said when I'd realised they'd stolen from me to get another fix. I said horrible things because I only seen the addiction and not the pain and cause behind it. I really feel personal shame thinking about it, but I was willing to open my eyes a little and to look beyond long-held misconceptions and republicans and the wider society they are 'part of need to re-examine the misconceptions they have about addiction and the radical transformation we can see in Irish society if we can recognise the concept that the opposite to addiction is connection. The templates for how to proceed are already in action in Portugal and Switzerland, with results to boot. Are we able to look beyond the sound-bites and proven failures of the past? If we can, we can be part of the process of the social recovery, because as was rightly remarked the people in power are some of the emptiest people in the world, and they won't do it unless they are made to develop a strategy that looks to reconnect and bond the weak and vulnerable back into society - to revert the concept of human nature being aggressive and about hyper-individuality and more about human brotherhood, which can help make our communities a lot less like that empty cage, and a lot more like Rat Park. 


Patrick Donohoe is a member of the United Ireland Society, Áth Claith.


Its aim is to make the economic and social case for Irish unity and a more egalitarian Ireland.

It's Time For Republicans To Rethink The Destructive War On Drugs

Patrick Donohoe calls for new thinking on the war on drugs.

We live in a world of perpetual war, it's never ending. It's almost 'part of our growing up. It pollutes our news media through the various mediums on a regular basis. One war that has been perpetually going on for just over a century now and one that has been widely socially acceptable is our 'war on drugs'. It is one that wider society sees as a necessary evil against the scourge of evil substances that we're led to believe gives addicts a chemical hook that enslaves their body in a zombie-like state rendering them useless and unfortunately this attitude has permeated throughout the world as a result of Nixon era reactionary domestic and foreign policy. It doesn't take much research to understand that this is not the case, and it is much more complex than that and has caused me to look at the regressive attitudes of fellow republicans who don't see the complexities of the situation with drugs and addictions, who advocate authoritarian solutions devoid of empathy and conjecture, that only do the opposite and exacerbate the problem.

But how did this drug war begin? Drugs weren't always illegal. Harry J. Anslinger is a man I've heard described as the most important man nobody has ever heard of. He was the leading light in the Federal Bureau of Narcotics subsumed that vast nationwide bureaucracy Federal Bureau of (alcohol) Prohibition after its decade long experiment that gave birth to modern international gangland cartels we know too well today. Anslinger was an overt racist that like-minded people in even 1920s America felt went too far. He freely used the 'n' word in his writings without a blink of an eye. Having fought a war against alcohol over a thirteen-year depression-era period and failing; he and his newly created department set about a war against cannabis and other drugs, ignoring most scientific studies at the time telling them they were wrong. The roots of the drug war can be found in the exploitation of racial tensions in the U.S. at the time. Anslinger ignoring the medical scientists perpetuated the myth that cannabis was driving women crazy and making them have sex with black men. Perish the thought. And other 'stronger' drugs were empowering the black negro to attack the poor unsuspecting white folk of Middle America. All rubbish, really. In contemporary times there has been a lot of anecdotal tales told about drugs and drug users with little resembling conjecture that haven't helped matters either.



The period prior to Anslinger's war on drugs, citizens with addiction issues received their drugs via prescription from their doctor for a small amount of money at their local chemist, a radical and highly successful method pioneered in the 1930s by a Californian doctor, Henry Smith Williams. Addicts received a diluted but medically pure form of the drug (which didn't give them lesions on their face etc.) and the clear majority were in full-time employment and functioning members of society. They didn't need to steal or turn to crime. That all ended with the advent of prohibition. Drug dealers and cartels were created overnight along with twenty thousand doctors and many more addicts dragged into the criminal justice system. Illegal substitutes flooded the market; addicts were now taking a dirty form of their drug and the price increased by 1000% in some cases. Addicts were now at the mercy of gangland figures who charged exorbitant prices meaning addicts now had to turn to crime, prostitution and begging to feed their habit and thus the new laws made criminals of ordinary members of the community and drove them underground into the hands of newly empowered dealers. A valuable lesson from history in the treatment of addicts was lost until the methods were revisited in the UK in the Liverpool satellite town of Widnes by Dr John Marks. Again the results were astounding with up to a 93% reduction in acquisition crime such as burglary, a massive reduction in street prostitution and gangland having their profits obliterated. This model was later adopted in the 1990s on a national basis in Switzerland - but not before the reactionaries in the Tory party shut the program down in the UK.

While rooted in racism the drug war was sustained by the train-of-thought that there was a 'chemical hook' that hijacked the body and enslaved it. The evidence of the pharmaceutical theory of addiction was an experiment on rats, which put a rat into an empty cage with two bottles. One with regular drinking water and one laced with cocaine or heroin, and in all cases the rat would turn to the drug-laced water and after a period would kill itself from taking the drugged water. This spawned an advertisement on American TV funded by the Partnership for a Drug Free America, which depicted a rat licking at a water bottle with the haunting voice-over explaining: "Only one drug is so addictive that nine out of ten laboratory rats will use it. And use it. And use it.... until they are dead". Dr. Bruce Alexander looked at this and saw an obvious flaw. The rats are in an empty cage, all alone. It reminded me of a comment I read from an addict who said, "addiction is a disease of loneliness". Dr. Alexander did his own experiment that would change the thinking of many on addiction and the myth of the simple 'chemical hook'. He made his own cage. But this time he included other rats, with the same water bottles. One with simple drinking water and the other bottle with water laced with heroin. Inside the cage were coloured balls, wheels to run around, and the best cheeses for them to eat. He aptly named the cage 'Rat Park'. They ate, played and had sex with each other and invariably the rats rarely went near the water bottle laced with drugs, unlike the rats in the empty cage and none took it until they died. They also took rats who has been in the empty cage for several weeks taking the heroin laced water and put them into Rat Park. The result: the rats would invariably, despite taking the drugged water for several weeks, would reject the heroin laced water once inside Rat Park and would bond with their fellow rats and few even exhibited signs of withdrawal from the drugged water they had been taking.

I can hear some say but sure that's only rats. But around the time of the Rat Park study there was a human form of the experiment happening in Southeast Asia - the Vietnam War. 20% of the U.S. soldiers in that conflict were addicted to heroin to escape the daily horrors unfolding before them. There were more Americans addicted to heroin in Vietnam than there was in the U.S. itself. Some visiting American politicians reported home that a lot of their troops were more likely to die from heroin addiction than from combat itself. The American people were shocked and disturbed with the thoughts of hundreds of thousands of junkies suddenly swarming on their cities and towns at the end of the war, as they believed the theory that heroin will have hijacked their bodies and it wasn't going to be pretty. That wasn't quite what happened, though. The soldiers came home. They were no longer in the jungle with people trying to kill them any longer. They reconnected with their loved ones and friends and it was found that 95% of them, within one single year, simply stopped and those who went into treatment were no more inclined to stop their addiction than those who didn't. The remaining 5% were found to have been victims of severe PTSD, unstable and abusive childhoods, or had been addicts to begin with when they went to war.




So, whether you're a rat in an empty cage, or a soldier in a jungle in Southeast Asia with people you can't see trying to kill you, it illuminated clearly that drug addiction is not as simple as a chemical hook. It showed why, while 90% of people who take drugs do not become addicted, some are susceptible to becoming addicted and that is more to do with their cage - their environment - and their disconnection from their family, friends and wider society and the remedy to this isn't 'tough love' but a more benevolent, benign approach that involves focusing on the cause of the addiction, which involves not just their present 'cage' but the other cause of addiction; childhood trauma, usually involving physical and/or sexual abuse, with the focus being re-connection.

Adverse Childhood Experiences was a detailed study commissioned into the long-term effects of child abuse and found those who experienced traumatic events as a child were two to four times more like to become a drug addict. It found two-thirds of injection drug abuse was due to some childhood trauma, so in effect, childhood abuse was as likely to bring about drug addiction, as obesity was to cause heart disease. Another study followed children from the age of five to eighteen and looked at the quality of parenting and its effects on children and how bad parenting could increase a child's future dependency on drugs. They found that children who had parents who were disengaged and who could be cruel were increasingly more likely to develop heavy drug use in their adult years in comparison to children who had parents who were loving and caring towards them. They found as they got older it meant they found it harder to develop loving relationships and found it easier to be angry, distressed and impulsive a lot of the time. One addict had said to Dr Gabor Maté, a leading voice on addictions, that when she first took heroin "it was like a warm hug, like a mother hugging a baby".



The criminalisation of addicts, which is a barrier to them reconnecting with society enslaving them with a criminal record, which is a permanent barrier to them seeking employment. Portugal has done the opposite with their decriminalisation and reconfigured their thinking instead concentrating their resources, not on the criminalisation and jailing of addicts, but trying to reconnect addicts by giving financial incentives to businesses to hire ex-addicts. And, of course, with a helping hand addicts largely reabsorbed themselves back into society and would leave their addiction behind. Switzerland, a country as conservative, if not more than, Ireland completely ended prohibition and created a system where addicts would no longer have a relationship with a drug dealer, but instead with their local GP. Those with the most extreme addiction issues who have previously failed a number of other treatment programs would be prescribed medical grade heroin in a supervised facility that resulted in a huge reduction in HIV infections and resulted in zero overdose deaths. Some other results from Switzerland's ending of prohibition were startling. It cut heroin addiction in half and with addicts no longer needing to steal to feed their habit burglaries, muggings and other assorted serious crimes were reduced by a massive 90% in some instances. Gangland lost its army of street level user/dealers and as a result, of there being no incentive to sell heroin, it became increasing hard to find at street level. The number of new addition addicts plummeted. Another socially positive outcome of these facilities is a massive burden lifted of the already overstretched paramedic and ER services. Would you want a close relative having a delayed ambulance, or not having immediate medical attention in an ER because medical and human resources are tied up in emergencies that otherwise are containable and manageable in facilities designed for quick response and specialist care.




The proponents of not just continuing the drug war in Ireland, but extending it further, scoff at the idea of safe injection centres, which will see the preventable deaths of 200+ addicts who die of overdoses in Ireland every year continue. In Switzerland 68% of HIV infection were due to injection drug use. Now it stands at 5%. We are literally condemning addicts to death and disease with our archaic drug laws. If opiates can be prescribed for physical pain, why not for psychological pain and trauma? I've seen addicts being described as "selfish scum" from those same reactionary champions of the drug war. The thought that ending prohibition on those suffering from addiction and them receiving 'free heroin' sends some over the edge, neglecting the results generated in other countries. You see giving addicts clean heroin in a supervised medical environment gives them an opportunity to leave the criminal life behind and thus having to no longer take dirty drugs allows them to become functioning citizens again and was found in Switzerland that over time as this helped them become more connected and develop bonds again with their family and friends etc they would simply begin to take smaller dosages eventually stopping completely all by themselves. It's worth noting right wing elements in Switzerland have twice tried to revert the laws back towards a criminalisation policy and prohibition with it both times being roundly rejected, with over two-thirds support to keep it as it is. They don't want to go back, so why will we not even go there? The drug laws in Ireland as they stand are driving those who have addictions underground and empowering gangland. We all want to see an end to gangland so why not cut off their supply-chain and put them out of business?

I have, and always will, identity myself as a republican. I was raised one and feel it in my blood twenty-four hours of the day. But I feel a disconnect with what republicanism has become. When I read the findings of my rudimentary level research it forced me to look at my own outlook on life and society. I realised we all have our own addictions in some form outside of the "norms”; our phones; social media; work; shopping etc. In a wider context, we live in a society that is full of addiction and we in some way look at addicts in fear because of our own vulnerability to addiction. We look at addiction with a narrow lens - the individual. The problem is with the individual and they themselves must sort themselves out and at the same time we judge them as morally flawed. Those who view the issue in a wider prism argue for what some call the "social recovery" where we look beyond the threats to addicts and use of force and look to build a society away from the hyper-individualism where people don't feel so alone, and people within society look for connectivity from each other and not from consumption.

When we talk of society, that means everybody, and that includes republicans. We are always looking for the next thing to endear ourselves to our communities, sometimes, to beat the propaganda of Sinn Féin and others who use terms such as 'anti-community elements' to describe us so-called dissidents. To be blunt, the drugs war has been a handy vehicle for some, as working class communities have largely felt the brunt of the criminality that stems from the illegal addiction game so naturally a community hurt by the effects of the addiction business have sought reactionary methods to deal with it and republicans to some degree have exploited this. Why I feel somewhat disconnected from modern day republicanism is the lack in foresight in dealing with anything. Like the obsession with militarism from some who see republicanism starting and ending with that. It’s no surprise then that republicans’ natural reaction to the drugs issue is to target drug dealers and victimise and shame addicts on social media etc for drug use; it's very archetypal of republicans. A comrade explained it well that when your only weapon for problem-solving is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.


But it is worth noting that middle class people statistically drink more alcohol and take more illegal drugs than those from working class communities, yet who do the state aim their war on drugs at? What community? Yet republicans, who see themselves as the vanguard of working class communities promote and call for authoritarian clampdowns in a war aimed at their community solely. It's a handy vehicle for the state to keep down those they are happy to do so to. Look to the United States for another example of this. The black community make up only 19% of the drug users and dealers there, yet they make up nearly 70% of those who are convicted for drugs-related offences. It reminded me of an incident when Republican Senator Jesse Helms, a huge proponent of prosecuting the drugs war, was on a CNN phone-in show when a caller came on to thank him "for everything you've done to help keep the niggers down." His response was to salute at the camera saying: "Well, thank you, I think." Can we thank Irish republicans for helping keep those most vulnerable in our own community down?

I had my own personal awakening and writing this made me think back to how badly I treated the addicts within my own family. The hurtful things I said when I'd realised they'd stolen from me to get another fix. I said horrible things because I only seen the addiction and not the pain and cause behind it. I really feel personal shame thinking about it, but I was willing to open my eyes a little and to look beyond long-held misconceptions and republicans and the wider society they are 'part of need to re-examine the misconceptions they have about addiction and the radical transformation we can see in Irish society if we can recognise the concept that the opposite to addiction is connection. The templates for how to proceed are already in action in Portugal and Switzerland, with results to boot. Are we able to look beyond the sound-bites and proven failures of the past? If we can, we can be part of the process of the social recovery, because as was rightly remarked the people in power are some of the emptiest people in the world, and they won't do it unless they are made to develop a strategy that looks to reconnect and bond the weak and vulnerable back into society - to revert the concept of human nature being aggressive and about hyper-individuality and more about human brotherhood, which can help make our communities a lot less like that empty cage, and a lot more like Rat Park. 


Patrick Donohoe is a member of the United Ireland Society, Áth Claith.


Its aim is to make the economic and social case for Irish unity and a more egalitarian Ireland.

21 comments:

  1. Lot of page views for this piece - abnormally high given the time it has been online

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well constructed article. There's no doubt that addiction causes suffering but the war on drugs is nonsense and drugs are part of modern socialising therefore inevitable. We have to find a new way of looking at it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Agree totally. The 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, Prohibition and the Eighth Amendment rank as the three worst public policy measures in liberal democracies as they were informed by (racialised and gendered) religio-cultural morality not a scientific evidence base.

    ReplyDelete
  4. BULAS BUS SIR! great piece , well written and so very very true.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a good article but in truth it is going over old ground, the so called war on drugs has clearly been a miserable failure since it began, the legalisation and regulation of all drugs which are currently illegal is the only logical step. The very term War on drugs is infantile and deceitful it was forced upon the world by US administrations which use it to gain a geopolitical advantage.

    . Only a tiny minority of those who consume these drugs become addicts, yet they are treated in the most appalling way, what little treatment is available can basically be called medicine by government dicttat,central government sets the criteria ie addicts are demonised for they must be mad, bad, or sad to become addicted, if they need medication like methodone prescribed the amount the doctor can prescribe is decided by government via ‘guidelines.’

    (By the way Thatcher was sympathetic to keeping what was then known as the English method of treating addicts, ie local GPs could prescribe drugs for patients who were addicts but she was overruled on a foreign policy issue, that old chestnut they support the war on drugs or endanger the so called ‘special relationship.’)

    As to Irish Republicans the used the war on drugs in exactly the same way the US government has it enabled them to police their back yard, while pretending just like US gov they are on the side of good against evil.

    It’s time Irish Republicans called for the legalisation and regulation of illicit drugs, and place themselves at the forefront of that debate.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yep lets normalise everything that some folk get their kicks out of.Sure what have we got to lose? The odd death of silly little young people shouldn't get in the way of the Richard Brandon's of this world capitalising on the drug trade or indeed the so called mental health experts raking it in dealing with drug addiction patients(chancers). If anybody seriously thinks govts are concerned about the wellbeing of those who take drugs then they have not been paying attention. It definitely all about the money.
    Btw it should be no surprise that some are as keen to normalise the oul drugs as they were in normalising abortion. Darwinism on steroids(no pun intended).

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  7. Wolfe Tone

    Just because certain types of drugs are forbidden and abortion was illegal does not mean that there have not been both drugs and abortion sectors in Ireland. Do not more people die from the consumption of legal substances such as alcohol and tobacco to say nothing of the opium epidemic in rustbelt USA caused by doctors and pharmaceutical giants.

    I agree; addiction treatment should be free on the health service along with supervised heroin shooting galleries as in Portugal and Switzerland. Listening to the lived experiences of addiction service users would help as well.

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  8. A quality thought provoking piece Patrick. Glad to have it feature on TPQ.

    Barry - I think drugs should be legalised because the measures used to prohibit their use have failed. Much like alcohol prohibition in the US. Keeping them illegal merely fuels gangs. At the same time the devastation wrought by drugs including alcohol on life in many communities needs to be addressed. I continuously warn my children about the dangers of drugs and the need to exercise caution. I imagine most parents are the same. And drug dealers have a reputation on a par with paedophiles. But ultimately my children will make the choice rather than me. Drug use is pervasive in this society and across all classes. People talk to me about using cocaine regularly - recently a guy showed me a small bag of it which he uses for his own enjoyment. They are so relaxed about it and feel no more wrong than we would about a pint. I know more people who have died from alcohol than from other drugs. As harmful as alcohol is I would never advocate banning it. Alcohol is my drug of choice. I am not addicted to it in the slightest but enjoy it. But legalised or not I will not be joining the queue to push something up my nose or into my arm. Society will eventually have to make the call on it. I think it is clear the direction we are moving in slowly but surely. I just hope the profit from legalisation goes into health and education programmes and not the pockets of those who stand to financially benefit from the legalisation.

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  9. Wolfetone,
    Drugs are normalised whether we like it or not. If Branson and the like wanted to dominate the drug trade, they would. Your argument seems based on the destruction that drugs causes, nobody is arguing against that. The point is how to accomodate it. If prohibition is so effective how did the biggest drug barons in europe flourish on the same island that held the most feared guerilla army in europe, who were massively anti drugs?

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  10. David Higgins,
    There are plenty of variables as to why barons flourished in Ireland, none more so than the authorities actually encouraged drugs(the war on drugs is a phoney war) within certain communities as a way of disempowering tight communities. As has proven in black communities in the US, introducing drugs and its knock on effects I.e gangs, will eventually turn those said communities in on themselves rather than have them focusing on the real enemy-those in power. Drugs are a brilliant way of taming and weakening people and thus negating the people's threat to those in power. Is it a coincidence that the north, in the last 20yrs, has seen an huge upsurge in the drug business since the IRA 'left the stage' and was replaced by various gangs that are regularly being accused of tolerating drugs if you grease their palms? There's not a snowball in hells chance that any of these groups will reach the heady heights of the IRA and drugs is a major factor in that.
    P.s the extent that the free state and Brit state went to in stopping the IRA compared to their attempts to halt drug barons should tell you all you need to know as to where the State's stand concerning the 'war on drugs'. We seen republicans tortured,framed,interned and murdered as well as the usual harassment of their friends and family in an effort to stop the IRA. On the the other hand the drug baron activities are treated delicately in comparison. Go figure.

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  11. David - the point about these things is who is to decide for us? Drugs have been normalised to a degree unimaginable. In the streets we smell dope all day long - people seem to use it as casually as they would a cigarette, the whiff of it drifting into the nostrils while walking. I recall being on a Palestine protest in West Belfast and the cops were asking the participants something or other. They just talked to the cops smoking the blow and the cops didn't seem in the slightest put out.

    I doubt drugs pose a greater long term threat than some committee for public safety. That is not to understate the harm they cause. Communities have been devastated by the scourge. The question is I guess how to reach a situation that creates least harm.

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  12. Never saw two dope smokers fighting but did see many times two drunks fighting!

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  13. Thanks for the comments, I've enjoyed it got some debates going on social media and changed some perceptions and got people thinking, which is great. I researched and read material on this and hope the source material was helpful. In my own personal life, out of a family of seven there were four addicts. Three heroin and one an alcoholic. And reading up on the subject I came to get an understanding of our childhood shapes our future as adults. The parenting you receive etc. I had a father who was hard on us. I had a stutter when I was around him as a kid because I was afraid of him and when he came in with a drink we'd run up the stairs. You couldn't cry or show emotion etc around him and reading of the studies they did I realised now why so many in my family were susceptible to addiction.

    Like nearly every one of the teenagers when I was one too (over 20 years ago now, unfortunately!) in my working class area in Dublin were dabbling in recreational stuff and I did too and looking back, the feeling I got was like what Gabor Maté ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cYcSak6nE )talked about in his Ted Talk, when the receptors in our brain are triggered when we feel the love and warmth stimulants bring to those who didn't get it in childhood, only aggression etc. I stopped because I could see I was living for the weekends to get that feeling again and didn't like it (loads of friends I grew up around continue to this day), but I wonder if I had moved in the circles some of my brothers and sisters moved in where other more addictive destructive substances were available I could have ended up like the people in my family that I looked upon with disdain and I only realised that now so many years after having done some basic research.

    I wasn't a scumbag, I was good at school, never got in trouble growing up (was a complete mammies boy) but other factors can bring anyone to the place so I came to write this in the hope others would change their perspective on a really complex subject and one that many republicans shy away from being honest about. So thank you to Mackers for sharing it on his platform, it's really appreciated.

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  14. Ask the cops in Australia and they'll tell you they'd much rather booze was banned than weed.

    Even the judges don't go hard on tokers. But it should be legalized with all the others, addiction should be a medical issue not a criminal one. Legalize and Tax, use the revenue raised to fight addiction.

    And instantly put dealers out of business.

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  15. Patrick/Unknown - any time you feel like doing another you are more than welcome.

    Steve - that seems the best way to go. Not perfect but perfection is dangerous because of perfectionists. Society should always try to improve.

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  16. Brilliant article, followed by engaging debate. This is why I love TPQ!

    I have long heard people who drink heavily and bet regularly, rant about the "evils" of drugs, not seeing any contradiction in these two legal vices (which certainly cause as much devastation as drug addiction. Have you seen families where the parents are betting anything? Heartbreaking).

    Truthfully, most drugs (with the exception of heroin) can be used socially and without any issue. I know people who regularly drop acid and sit in their bedsits listening to music. They're not doing anyone any harm, so why penalise them? I know others who take ecstacy and head out. They know what to do (drink water etc), and have a good time. And why is it seemingly all prevailing in Irish society circa 2018? Because we've caught up with the rest of the world. If the BBC were able to make a programme for Panorama in 1955, where MP Christopher Mayhew took mescaline and allowed his reaction to be recorded, then clearly drugs have a place in the human psyche. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zaK47qOScI

    As people have stated, what is really needed is education and legalisation. By all means, do what you want. But be aware of the consequences.

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    1. CHristopher,

      Truthfully, most drugs (with the exception of heroin) can be used socially and without any issue.

      According medical expert, users, scientific research heroin in its purest from is one of least harmful drugs around and anybody who takes medical grade heroin have normal healthy lives and have no problems with social interaction, holding down jobs, forming relationships. The muck people get on the street as the documentary exposes is anything but heroin. It also exposes politians who haven't a clue about hat they are talking about. To them it is all about money and looking good in front of cameras.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC_nrLIc2Zk

      Another video worth a watch is lecture by Professor David Nutt The Truth About Drugs. Professor Nutt uses the same arguments that Patrick Donohoe used in his orignal piece and gives some of the same examples when both call for new thinking on the war on drugs.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi5LjgK8_Ys

      Have armed repbulicans changed their views on drugs? Not according to an article in the Belfast Telegraph Dissidents issue threats to the security forces and drug gangs . And part of their thinking is summed up in this line..

      The group said a recent spike in drug deaths had left it with "no other option than to take military action" against drug dealers.

      All I know is the first 21 yrs of my life in Ardoyne I knew two people who died as a result of the conflict. My uncle and a close family friend. I came back to Belfast in July 2016 and in that time period I have seen 14 people die. One was shot dead by republicans, one litterally threw the rope up, one died from alcohol abuse and the rest mostly aged in their 20's - mid to late 30's died from illegally taking legal drugs and two died over the recent hike in deaths and didn't make the news.. What's the answer to the problem.. No idea, although education has to play a part...

      As a side note the hit TV show Narcos...straw poll, who thinks the Mena cover up will be covered?....

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLWMnH31D-Y

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    2. And then you have to throw Special Branch/MI5 into the mix... Police Ombudsman launches informer tape probe Connla Young, Irish News 27 July, 2017


      In the recording, which is believed to have been made in the Portrush area in March, an officer (known as Policeman 1) told the man (known as Suspect 1) that the PSNI knew he was a drug dealer and offered him protection if he worked for them. He was also told he could be paid up to £15,000 for information about another man police believe is a major dealer - whom we have called Target 1.

      An officer later claimed that Target 1 has “connections to the police” and claimed “there’s dirty f**kin’ peelers about”. During the exchange another officer - known as Policeman 2 - claimed that PSNI colleagues are "probably f**ckin’ working” for Target 1.

      Astonishingly, Policeman 1 also claimed that the "suspicion" for providing information could be directed at other people and went on to identify two men who could be set up as patsies.



      What I ask myself is who is really the big bad wolf...Is it the GP who prescribes the drugs, the Chemist who dispenses the drugs, MI5 who want to set up innocent people as drug dealers or former Presidents of the USA who worked with Central American drug cartels. We all know the media and ill-informed people want to level the drug problem at big bad Irish Repbulicans...

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  17. Christopher - this is an interesting take. I think often what we see is the Mary Whitehouse perspective of personal morality masquerading as social concern. There are people who can't allow you to make decisions - they want to make them for you. It is always a matter of disentangling that from the genuine concern rooted in something other than personal morality. And there is a genuine concern about the impact of drugs on communities.

    Ultimately, freedom if it is to be experienced has to be lived through the autonomy of one's own body. And that leads us into the realm of the right to end our own lives at a point of our choosing. Another complex debate which will have to be faced at some point.

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  18. AM,

    you're bang on in reference to people conflating personal opinion with genuine concern. Of course, communities have been devastated by drugs (look at the likes of Ballymun, and the small mining towns in England). But that came about, I would argue, through uncaring drug dealers (the ultimate personification of the Thatcherite yuppie), a lack of hope in the community (no job prospects, no bright future) and poverty. Combine all three, and you get a recipe for crime and abject misery.

    Whereas, if you remove the drug dealer by legalising drugs, you bring the price down. By investing in communities and creating new jobs, you give people a reason to contribute. Of course, that's a very idealistic view. But it's one that has merit, if you ask me.

    I read a comment by someone, discussing the recent abortion referendum, to the effect of "Ireland, in the 20th century alone, went from being stuck in the 19th century to accelerating through to the 21st century", and I'd certainly agree with that. And, because we went from one extreme to the other, it'll be interesting to see how this transition plays out in the future.

    In terms of assisted suicide, I would very much be in favour of it. Having a relative slowly becoming crippled with MS is not a pleasant situation, and it would have been easier if they had been allowed to die with dignity.

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