Junkies in city centre [MOD WARNING POST #331]

waxon-waxoff

Is it just me or is there more junkies around the city centre lately. Maybe heroin has got cheaper. They are usually invisible but i seen two in the corner of car parks in the last few days. Id prefer if they stayed hidden but they are starting to shoot up in more public places and you dont want that near your home or where you park your car. Walk on a needle and it could be game over

Fat_Fingers

you could probably get a good mileage out of this topic if its moved in After Hours.

cosmic

*sigh*

bugler

There have always been loads of them around. Depending on the time of day and the area you are more likely to see them or avoid them.

I'm not sure I've noticed any change in their numbers over the past 5 years.

Max Power1

depends on where you are in the city tbh. Certain areas are notorious for junkies, and always have been. I dont think its gotten any worse recently though.

chirogirl

Yeah there's loads around Abbey St, Talbot St.:mad:

Grupouva

I agree with the OP, its definitely got a lot worse recenly. The laneway that goes from Abbey st luas stop through to eden quy is unreal these days. Usually a group of about 25 or 30 of them in the alley and spilling out onto the street. It seems to be different types all congregating together, from older zombie-like junkies in their late 30's down to 18/19 year old tracksuited scum drinking cans of excelsior

rubberdiddies

outside Tara Street. station has always been a bad spot, particularly for blatent dealing but lately it does seem to have become worse.

not a nice sight for anyone, but particularly tourists

spurious

I think the guards have moved many of them on from Amiens Street and Marlborough Street, so they're heading towards the river. There are definitely less at the Talbot St./Marlborough St. junction these days.

xzanti

waxon-waxoff wrote: »

Maybe heroin has got cheaper.

A person would have to be using Heroin for a long time before you would know it from their appearance.. Most of the older junkies you see around town would be using since early on in life..

I read somewhere that the real hardcore ones you see around the quays are the children of the 'original' junkies from back in the 70's or 80's when heroin was first introduced to Dublin by the likes of the Dunne family.. I actually read that in a post on Boards about a year ago.. Anyone remember that post? It was very interesting..

Then again, some people use heroin and hold steady jobs and you wouldn't know there was anything wrong with them at all..

silverharp

I saw my first junkie shooting up a couple of weeks back, the thing was it was off focking grafton street in a doorway beside yo-sushi. Have these people no respect. It was good sushi though.

JosDel

waxon-waxoff wrote: »

Is it just me or is there more junkies around the city centre lately. Maybe heroin has got cheaper. They are usually invisible but i seen two in the corner of car parks in the last few days. Id prefer if they stayed hidden but they are starting to shoot up in more public places and you dont want that near your home or where you park your car. Walk on a needle and it could be game over

I feel so sorry for these sick addicts, It's a pity the law cannot do more to stop the heroin dealers making a fortune..

waxon-waxoff

Interesting that the guards are moving them from Talbot St area as someone said above as i seen one fella in the car park of an apartment block not far from there. I seen the legs sticking out from behind a wheelie bin in the apartment bin shed. Never seen them in there before. Its disturbing for residents in such a public place

Jay D

Is it just me or does this thread encourage you to fall asleep?

Draco

The North Lotts was clear of junkies for about 9 months (or at least I wasn't seeing them) but since mid-May there has been a marked increase in the numbers. They've even been appearing first thing in the morning (from 7am on) which they weren't before. Something must have changed recently for such an increase to be happening.

uncle ernie

i think colvin has moved them all into the free zones

The Hill Billy

Jay D wrote: »

Is it just me or does this thread encourage you to fall asleep?

If you don't have anything to contribute - don't post & just go back to sleep.

Thanks,

HB

Bill2673

There's a kid that begs sometimes outside Arnotts on Mary St, I've seen him knocking about town for three years or so now. I'd say he's about 16 or 17 now, and my god, he is so unhealthy looking it makes me shake when I see him. His face is grey white and yellow and he always has a joint in his hand. I have a huge amount of sympathy for anyone who ends up in this situation.

Yes I do agree there are more junkies in Dublin, visibly, on the streets. I believe heroin has gotten a lot cheaper, with a lot of supply now coming from Afghanistan. Apparently the Taliban had really clamped down on it, but since the americans went in it has grown substantially again (and I;m not making a political point here, thats just the way it is).

One way or another, there is clearly a massive drug problem in Dublin, its very evident, and I'm wondering quite what has to happen for it to become an election issue. Politicians got very worked up over bloody stag hunting. Would this not matter to them a bit more?

spurious

Bill2673 wrote: »

One way or another, there is clearly a massive drug problem in Dublin, its very evident, and I'm wondering quite what has to happen for it to become an election issue. Politicians got very worked up over bloody stag hunting. Would this not matter to them a bit more?

They look after who votes for them.
Not many of the outraged shoppers in town live there, not all who live there vote and few if any of the junkies do.

Stag hunting, now there are chaps who vote.

Bill2673

spurious wrote: »

They look after who votes for them.
Not many of the outraged shoppers in town live there, not all who live there vote and few if any of the junkies do.

Stag hunting, now there are chaps who vote.

You are spot on there.

cosmic

Bill2673 wrote: »

One way or another, there is clearly a massive drug problem in Dublin, its very evident, and I'm wondering quite what has to happen for it to become an election issue. Politicians got very worked up over bloody stag hunting. Would this not matter to them a bit more?

Tony Gregory did some amazing work to fight the drug problem in the City. His sad death was a huge loss to Dublin.

Degsy

spurious wrote: »

I think the guards have moved many of them on from Amiens Street and Marlborough Street, so they're heading towards the river. There are definitely less at the Talbot St./Marlborough St. junction these days.

What?
I was walking down marlboro st from eden quay and i counted over 20 of them in the vicinity of the Abbey theatre alone.
By the tim ei'd got to the Pro cathedral i'd lost count,there must've been 60 or so in 100 yards of street.
What makes it more sickening is the fact that t ourists regularly wander down that street either lost or taking a mooch around,what they must think of this country after witnessing these animals is anybodies guess.

Bill2673

Degsy wrote: »

What?
I was walking down marlboro st from eden quay and i counted over 20 of them in the vicinity of the Abbey theatre alone.
By the tim ei'd got to the Pro cathedral i'd lost count,there must've been 60 or so in 100 yards of street.
What makes it more sickening is the fact that t ourists regularly wander down that street either lost or taking a mooch around,what they must think of this country after witnessing these animals is anybodies guess.

As long as people see junkies as 'animals' rather than individuals who have had the misfortune to be born into to outer fringes of society where drug abuse is rife and a part of life and all that goes with that, and feel more compassion for a tourist who has to spend ten minutes looking at them than the junkie who spends his/her entire life in a messed up state, then how would the problem ever be solved.

sorry for getting up on a high horse about it. i have a huge sympathy for anyone who has a drug addiction, i wouldn't wish it on anyone.

ruddellmander

If ya stand at the bus stops there on eden quay you can actually see the drug dealing going on,its seriously like a scene out of The Wire. Junkie goes to the dealer,dealer whistles,junkies walks to the bordwalk to pick it up..actually so disgusting and very uncomfortable when waiting on a bus!!!

prinz

Situation seems to be getting worse week on week. Usually in the city centre at the weekends and the last few months things have been getting worse every time. Junkies and scumbags.

Third_Echelon

I used to live at the end of temple bar just beside the Dublin Corporation building. That area and the alleyway beside my apartment block was a favourite hang-out spot for them. Some of the things i've seen over the years i lived there still make me wince any time i'm reminded of them....

The amount of dealing that went on at that bus stop beside the corporation building was crazy... Used to get a bus from there to work in the mornings and it was being dealt out in plain daylight and in no way were they trying to hide what was going on....

Glad i moved from there in the end...

Vim Fuego

My girlfriend used to work on an office on Talbot St, I have never been so glad when she left that job recently. It's a bloody horrible mess of a street, and I can't believe they are allowed to congregate in such a central part of the city.

Also, I'm sorry but I don't have an ounce of sympathy for these people. You can bleat on about how terrible it is but these scumbags wouldn't think twice about sticking you with a syringe. Happened to my uncle about 2 months ago, poor bastard hasn't got the all-clear yet

Cookie_Monster

Jay D wrote: »

Is it just me or does this thread encourage you to fall asleep?

no, it just makes me angry that nothing is ever done about these wasters and their suppliers.

All the Gardai ever do is "move them on". An hour or two later they are back again...

ruddellmander

should just give them a field out in them middle of nowhere and let them run riot..cos its getting to the point where its all over the city,even out as far as whitehall..seen about 4 lads off their faces comin out of a house known for dealing the other day..no pleasent to say the least

M.J.M.C

ruddellmander wrote: »

If ya stand at the bus stops there on eden quay you can actually see the drug dealing going on,its seriously like a scene out of The Wire. Junkie goes to the dealer,dealer whistles,junkies walks to the bordwalk to pick it up..actually so disgusting and very uncomfortable when waiting on a bus!!!

You could not be anymore correct!

EVERY morning, I pass the corner at Eden Quay and where the Abbey Theater is.
You see them standing on the corner on watch out just dealing in full view of the public.

The issue isn't if you feel sorry for them or not, the issue is there is a SERIOUS increase in the amount of open drug dealing happening in our city and it is HORRIBLE.

The way they have ruined custom house sitting around shooting up is an outrage. Tourists have stopped me to ask where it is, its not somewhere you'd like them to see.

EDIT:
Have you ever seen them crossing a road - ZERO FEAR haha that's the drugs for ya
Straight across the road dont even look.

ruddellmander

yeah it is gettin very very dangerous around there.. my friend was waiting on the bus there recently and was asked if he sold drugs,he told the scrote he didnt and 3 of them threatened to kill him if he didnt sell them drugs..he said he was bricking it,luckily a garda was near and seperated them and he got the bus but was very shaken up!!

biko

xzanti wrote: »

I read somewhere that the real hardcore ones you see around the quays are the children of the 'original' junkies from back in the 70's or 80's when heroin was first introduced to Dublin by the likes of the Dunne family.. I actually read that in a post on Boards about a year ago.. Anyone remember that post? It was very interesting..

Besides Derek Dunne you have Tony Felloni

The huge heroin problem in Dublin in the 1980s was largely due to Felloni and his family. Despite numerous arrests, it was 1996 before the police caught up with him and were finally able to make charges stick.

He started as a blackmailer in the early 1960s. His scam was simple: lure young girls to a flat on the pretext of a party, terrorise them into stripping naked, photograph them and then demand money on the threat of sending the photographs to employees and parents. On some occasions he even raped the girl in question.

Over the years he graduated from petty thief to major Dublin drugs baron. His children sold drugs with him. Of his six children, all, bar one, are junkies and have criminal convictions.

source:King Scum: The Life and Crimes of Tony Felloni, Dublin's Heroin Boss by Paul Reynolds

dan1895

I've been all over the world and never seen a drug problem so obvious as it is in our city centre. Its a damn shame.

Degsy

ruddellmander wrote: »

If ya stand at the bus stops there on eden quay you can actually see the drug dealing going on,its seriously like a scene out of The Wire. Junkie goes to the dealer,dealer whistles,junkies walks to the bordwalk to pick it up..actually so disgusting and very uncomfortable when waiting on a bus!!!

Was in mcdonalds in o'connell st a while back and a bloke comes in with a two-year old child..he sits there twitching till another bloke comes in and very clumsily passes him something under the table...he then hightails it up to the jacks leaving the kid with his dealer for agood five minutes.

After a while the dealer starts getting abit lemon so he says to a woman at another table "will ye look after him fer a minute" and fcucks off to the toilet himself...leaving a two year old unatended in mcdonalds.

About 5 minutes later the two of them reappear and grabbing the kid,wobble off into the sunset.

Sickening,absolutely sickening..why is this dirtbird allowed to be in charge of a child are there no social services to deal with this sort of thing?

ruddellmander

the have no conscience,nor any core values for life..sure look at how they treat their own!!

spider_pig

there was some amount of them out in force yesterday i was in town and had got home to receive a text from my mate he had just got into town and said the amount a bogeys out today is unreal i tough it was just me thinking it but it does be like the land of the living dead at times swarms of zombies all over the place, one place i was shocked seen so many in was dun laoghaire they've got some bad ass junkie's out that way big huge mother fu**kers out there compared to some the one's you see in the city centre

stomprockin

spider_pig wrote: »

it does be like the land of the living dead at times swarms of zombies all over the place

lol its like a the Michael Jackson video Thriller:)

spider_pig

stomprockin wrote: »

lol its like a the Michael Jackson video Thriller:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZROH79ZWg

haha i couldn't resist

WindSock

I can't really see an easy solution to move them on. They hang around the city because the services are there for them, there is no where else in Dublin that would be happy to accept them. The only thing to do at the moment is to be aware of the junky black spots and steer clear. It really sucks for tourists and those who are unaware though.
The city clearly needs to be cleaned up and purged, but it seems to be a problem in every major city, it is difficult to get rid of this sort of problem.

Vim Fuego

I caught the repeat of the Lunchtime show on Newstalk. Dr. James Reilly of Fine Gael was on talking to Damien Kiberd on the (loosely) linked topics of (a) The Revenue have a new hotline to report illegal cigarette sellers while (b) no-one seems to be doing anything about drugs being openly sold and consumed on the streets.

Reilly's main points relevant to this thread were that Fine Gael always have been strong on crime, the current laws are not being enforced and if elected, they will take the drugs off the streets. Now, the man is a politician, so of course he didn't say how he would achieve this but I think it's positive to hear the subject being discussed by a TD.

Tried to find the audio on the newstalk site, the lunchtime show seems to be the only one they don't podcast or play on their media player

bugler

Well there isn't a quick fix solution. The Gardai can't really do anything - being a junkie isn't itself a crime and there's only so much 'moving on' you can do, and it's mostly one street to the next stuff, not exactly solving the problem when you're talking about the city centre generally.

The problem is one of social policy as much as criminal. I suspect Dublin's junkies are so obvious for a couple of reasons:

1. There are impoverished inner city communities that are basically woven into the city centre.

2. Dublin is so small and centralised anyway that it draws them in. We don't have a sprawling Metropolis with different shopping districts and facilities. It's all in the one place. So everyone ends up in the one pot.

Neither of those points is going to change any time soon.

As for the actual dealing, there is simply no political will to do anything about it. It would help if Labour/FG made a political football out of it, we might see some action then. The boardwalk is a ****ing disgrace and we should be embarrassed.

delta_bravo

Vim Fuego wrote: »

I caught the repeat of the Lunchtime show on Newstalk. Dr. James Reilly of Fine Gael was on talking to Damien Kiberd on the (loosely) linked topics of (a) The Revenue have a new hotline to report illegal cigarette sellers while (b) no-one seems to be doing anything about drugs being openly sold and consumed on the streets.

Reilly's main points relevant to this thread were that Fine Gael always have been strong on crime, the current laws are not being enforced and if elected, they will take the drugs off the streets. Now, the man is a politician, so of course he didn't say how he would achieve this but I think it's positive to hear the subject being discussed by a TD.

Tried to find the audio on the newstalk site, the lunchtime show seems to be the only one they don't podcast or play on their media player

I believe he said he would lock up every drug dealer/user in Dublin to clear them off the streets. An admirable but impossible plan. At a low estimate there are about 200 zombie like heroin addicts around the city. It was merely a vote grabbing claim that could never actually be implemented.

dcr22B

M.J.M.C wrote: »

Have you ever seen them crossing a road - ZERO FEAR haha that's the drugs for ya
Straight across the road dont even look.

Some day I'll plough one of them over to make them pay attention. Have had a few near misses with them in the past but you daren't say anything for fear of the consequences.

I can't have any sympathy for them especially the ones with small kids, that's just selfish.

mikemac

I sometimes eat my lunch up at the Royal Canal, just sit on my own on a bench, watch the ducks and swams have my sandwiches.

Every lunchtime there is a gang of junkies hanging around , I believe Amiens St clinic is closed at lunch so they hang around the canal
They don't bother people, I've sat on the next bench to them and they wouldn't even look at you.

Spaced out of their heads and having cans of Dutch which they fire at the swans when finished :mad:

I pass them on Amiens St Clinic and the usual spots like Talbot St and the boardwalk.
The boardwalk is shame as it's great for tourist but anyone who calls it a no go area is just talking like a tabloid newspaper. Scaremongering.

It's safe to walk down any time, well daylight hours anyway.

gurramok

feelingstressed wrote: »

The boardwalk is shame as it's great for tourist but anyone who calls it a no go area is just talking like a tabloid newspaper. Scaremongering.

It's safe to walk down any time, well daylight hours anyway.

You're a brave one indeed. It has menace and fear about it despite the fights that go on hence its a no-go for us decent folk.

Gyalist

One day last week I decided to spend a few hours rambling around Phoenix Park, then decided to take the no. 10 bus back home. Just before we left the terminus, three clearly strung-out men got on the bus, flashed passes at the bus driver and sat down. All the way into the city centre they made complete nuisances of themselves until they got off at the bus stop nearest to O'Connell Bridge. The bus was packed with Spanish students and they were terrified.

A good friend of mine works in Dublin Bus management so when I saw him a few days later I asked him if Dublin Bus employed junkies (I'd assumed that the passes the three men showed to the driver were employee passes) and I was amazed when he told me that junkies are given some sort of disability card that entitles them to travel for free as their drug addiction is considered a disability.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Gyalist wrote: »

I was amazed when he told me that junkies are given some sort of disability card that entitles them to travel for free as their drug addiction is considered a disability.

A few years ago I took pre-discharge leave from the army and worked for a taxi company, and addicts/junkies got freebie taxi's on the HSE account from the treatment center in Pearce St. to home & hospitals!.

A lot of the driver's wouldn't take those jobs, including me after a few times simply because they were crawling with filth & the cab required a complete clean down after the job.

So it doesn't surprise me in the least about the bus pass.

BenShermin

Gyalist wrote: »

A good friend of mine works in Dublin Bus management so when I saw him a few days later I asked him if Dublin Bus employed junkies (I'd assumed that the passes the three men showed to the driver were employee passes) and I was amazed when he told me that junkies are given some sort of disability card that entitles them to travel for free as their drug addiction is considered a disability.

:eek: I honestly can't believe there are people that are not aware of this!! There is also a huge amount of forged free travel passes floating about. I could ramble on for ages about how much of a fooking disgrace it is....

Degsy

Loads of the scrotes up my way have free bus passes..they often head into town on the bus to score thier drugs (usually "Yellows" these days) and sit up the back smoking spiffs and bragging about their criminal 'exploits'.

In one journey alone i learned how to steal a new model transit and the procedure for getting drugs into mountjoty over the wall.

It seems being a junkie is now a license to commit crime and also a yearly saving of 1000 euro based on two journeys per day on the bus.

ParkRunner

Darius Stocky Tulip wrote: »

A few years ago I took pre-discharge leave from the army and worked for a taxi company, and addicts/junkies got freebie taxi's on the HSE account from the treatment center in Pearce St. to home & hospitals!.

A lot of the driver's wouldn't take those jobs, including me after a few times simply because they were crawling with filth & the cab required a complete clean down after the job.

So it doesn't surprise me in the least about the bus pass.

I always wondered how junkies could afford to be getting taxi's so much when I lived in Marino and walked into the city. It is astonishing that they get free bus and taxi passes :eek:

DigiGal

dcr22B wrote: »

Some day I'll plough one of them over to make them pay attention. Have had a few near misses with them in the past but you daren't say anything for fear of the consequences.

I can't have any sympathy for them especially the ones with small kids, that's just selfish.

Don't run em over



They'll put a claim in!