Giving addicts a city centre haven to shoot up won’t work

With Dublin’s streets awash with signs of drug addiction...

IHAVE worked in the centre of Dublin city since 1998, and every other day I see drug addicts injecting, dealing, defecating and generally drowning in the throes of serious addiction on a regular basis. To get to my office I sometimes walk over, around and past people in these states and worse. I no longer give a second thought to discarded packets of citric acid, bottles of water and tell-tale aluminium foil, not to mention the needles.

The public and those who don’t witness the daily drug dealing and anti-social behaviour are quite likely to be in favour of new Government plans for a supervised injecting facility, known as an SIF, in our town. Such a centre would provide a ‘safe haven’ for addicts, according to Catherine Byrne, the Minister for Drugs, who cites several successful overseas models as a reason why this pilot can’t fail.

When I first heard about this idea in 2016, I would have agreed. Would this put an end to some of the chaotic scenes you can witness on a daily basis? To an extent, it would. But on closer examination, it will do little or nothing to ameliorate the chronic drug addiction problem at the centre of this debate. It is merely herding addicts away from the public glare into a room where they can inject, but doing nothing to rehabilitate or remedy the addiction.

Let’s look at how the centres will work, according to Government proposals. According to legislation, this is a facility where ‘authorised users’ (drug addicts) can inject drugs in a safe environment. A contradiction in terms, if you think about it: how can injecting poison be considered safe, even in a controlled environment? So, you carry your own drugs – purchased illegally from one of the city’s drug cartels – use needles provided by the centre, shoot up, have your fix, and then leave to repeat the cycle all over again.

LET’S not forget that to get their drugs, addicts must beg, borrow, steal or sell their bodies. This demeaning way of life has been ignored in planning these facilities. The dire choices an addict must make to secure drugs don’t even come into the debate.

This new progressive Act also means that it is now lawful for an authorised addict to have heroin (and other illicit drugs currently prescribed under the Misuse of Drugs Act) on their possession in the centre (but not outside it) – just enough, mind you, for immediate personal consumption. In this facility, soon to be somewhere in the capital’s city centre, the Misuse of Drugs Act will no longer apply to authorised addicts. The problem that arises from this is how addicts get their illegal drugs into the centre without breaking the law. Gardaí will ‘use discretion’, say the headlines, which means that essentially for the centre to work, the gardaí will need to turn a blind eye to drug possession.

Minister Byrne was correct when she said at the Dublin Joint Policing Forum in September that ‘nobody will be giving out free drugs at this centre’. Dublin city centre will have a facility where you can take illegal drugs legally, but you will not be given them for free, which is exactly why this centre will create problems and effectively decriminalise the possession of illicit drugs in Dublin city centre. The users must still buy such drugs from criminals, the same criminals the Government are spending millions of euro policing on an annual basis. Confused? I know I am In the Netherlands, where injecting rooms are commonplace, they are located in the areas where the drug users are living. They are residential communities in small units, and the users are provided with medical-grade heroin, therefore not concentrating a population of drug users in one place, and potentially providing a perfect drugs market; meanwhile, ensuring the heroin is medical grade deals with the issue of decriminalisation.

We hear lots of declarations about living in a ‘nanny state’ with proposals to hide alcohol behind curtains in supermarkets to limit exposure. But you can still carry illegal and potentially deadly drugs into a facility which could be located beside a school or in Dublin’s prime tourism spot? Why can’t medically safe drugs be provided? If I buy a hamburger in the city, it must come from a retailer where a licence and HSE food approval certificate have been secured by the owner to ensure the safety of the consumer.

Whenever I project these unpopular opinions, I hear the shouts of Nimby. However, if you work or live in Dublin 1 or 2 you will have experienced, first-hand, issues around drug abuse and associated anti-social behaviour in the city centre.

WHEN things start getting visibly out of hand, between local area pressure and media exposure, the gardaí are wrongly called to account to deal with the fallout and try their best to manage a serious social problem. In the Dublin of 2017 they do that with at least 600-800 fewer gardaí than they had in 2007.

There is no magic solution for drug addiction, but surely if we want to provide dignity to users then let’s prioritise treatment and rehabilitation. If injecting centres are to be used, as a last resort (they are not treatment, after all), then at least locate them in residential areas where drug users live rather than creating giant citycentre drug markets.

Provide them with legal medicalgrade heroin, but also with help for their other physical and physiological needs, as well as a way out of drug addiction.

Truly give them a safe harbour instead of throwing them back into the vicious cycle of addiction along with the rest of the community.

Martin Harte is CEO of the Temple Bar Company, which organises the capital’s only Festival of Politics. The festival will run from November 22 to 26. See festivalofpolitics.ie for further information.