Galway Heroin Problem

While you are talking about being

gilberto_eire wrote: »

Oblivious to the fact

how about the fact that 95% of addicts in the merseyside program managed to hold down jobs, houses and live relatively normal lives.
Aside from the fact that it is cheaper to provide them with what they need as addicts free of charge than the associated policing and incarceration for theft, possession and dealing.
Aside from the fact that they have less severe and less frequent major healthcare problems that we are paying for treatment of anyway.
Aside from the fact that as addicts buying on the black market they are putting money straight into the hands of organised criminal gangs, which we must then fund policing to control.
Aside from the fact that crime levels (muggings, break ins, violent crime, street prostitution) have dropped in every region that has decriminalized and set up Heroin access programs.

Your are arguing in favor of maintaining the status quo because you dislike them as human entities, rather than looking at the facts that both the addicts and society benefit by going in a totally different direction.

gilberto_eire wrote: »

on behalf of the evicted travellers

Why you would bring the traveller strawman into it we can only hazard a guess that either you are the kind of bigot that would have enjoyed cutting eyeholes in sheets around the middle of the last century, or that you have no relevant points to make, so you'd like to make the suggestion that I am too compassionate to minority groups to take away from the points that I do make. Either way, a fairly low behavior

Anytime you'd like to put some of the "facts" you've alluded to up here I'd be glad to see them, refute them and/or discuss/debate them with you.

gilberto_eire wrote: »

It's my fault, how that happens I'm at a loss.

Your attitude you convey in your posts - Intolerant, prejudiced, stereotyping, condescending and racist (Not that Travellers are a specific race, but they are an identfiable ethnic group and you have slurred them without posting any evidence)

But people like you who aren't in touch with reality

After 90 years of failed prohibition which you refuse to acknowledge, you are suggesting that I am not in touch with reality. delicious stuff there.

I'm not suggesting that it will all be sunshine and lollipops. People with mental illnesses, addiction problems, traumatic childhoods and tragedy in their lives will still have to cope with a certain amount of misery and hardship in their lives. What I am suggesting is that we can help them, while helping ourselves rather than setting them up in a perpetuating cycle of criminality which we then have to finance and which makes everyone's situation worse.:rolleyes:

There's a report in the City Tribune today that heroin is being openly sold in Westside now. For everyone's sake, residents of Galway and addicts alike you'd think it'd be in the Guards interest to make tackling that an absolute priority. Regardless of your views on legalisation etc no good has ever come from letting heroin dealing take hold in an area.
http://connachttribune.ie/residents-anger-as-heroin-addicts-score-at-open-drug-market-302/

A number of locals made a complaint to Gardaí on Wednesday morning that a number of addicts were in the process of buying heroin from a dealer behind Westside Church.

However, Councillor Mike Cubbard said the residents were told there were no Gardaí available to deal with the situation.

“The lads who spotted this rang the Gardai straight away. The answer they got from the Gardai was ‘today is a busy day… everybody is up in court and there are no guards available to call out to you.

“It shows how bad it’s gotten now that they’re doing this in broad daylight beside a church at 11 in the morning… there is a huge frustration out there with the locals at the moment.”

Storm 10 wrote: »

It's happening all over this City saw a few guys in the Square acting like they were passing stuff but I kept away from them

Yup. It's not just happening in one area. That's just what made a headline.

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

I suppose the headline was more about the guards getting a call about it and saying they were too busy to respond, obviously not thinking it was a priority.

OR like it said in the article, the (badly resourced and under manned) Gardai responded to the phone caller;

"today is a busy day… everybody is up in court and there are no guards available to call out to you".

No mention there that the Gardai didn't think it was urgent or a priority. Rather that they did not have the man power to respond on the day in question. Its not like there are 40 Gardai sitting in Mill Street picking their noses all day.