Shame on coke users

THERE are many in the middle-class homes of Ireland who lament spiralling gangland crime and the bloody feuds it has occasioned.

At the same time, they think nothing of doing lines of cocaine at dinner parties or in the toilets of nightclubs, oblivious to the fact they are as much a part of the problem as the thugs who peddle drugs.

These are the people who hop onto every fashionable bandwagon, from gluten-free diets to climate change, yet seem unaware of the misery the drug supply chain causes, whether it is among the poor in Colombia or Asia, or the disadvantaged in our city suburbs.

Maintaining an air of detachment is a luxury. Anyone who takes cocaine carries as much responsibility for crime as the ganglords who control the business.