The State should focus on smaller drug-dealers who are the only role models for young people, the National Crime Forum was told yesterday.
Ms Anna Quigley, of the Dublin Citywide Drugs Crisis Campaign, said the Criminal Assets Bureau had succeeded in targeting highprofile drug-dealers. "But the real problem is not those very big drug-dealers. The real problem is the role models at local levels," she said.
"One of the few role models young people get of people who are successful are those middlerange dealers who stay living in their own local areas." Many of these people still had free medical treatment from the Eastern Health board, subsidised local authority housing and social welfare payments. But the media were more interested in the "big name" dealers. The money CAB had seized should "go back to where it's come from", she said. The previous government had committed itself to matching funds seized from criminals to "help to repair some of the damage". The head of the Inner City Organisation Network, Mr Fergus McCabe, said there was a "huge underestimation of the damage and importance of the drugs issue".
Policy-oriented research rather than the Government's "crisis-oriented and often hysterical response" could help solve the problems.
The money needed to deal with housing, education and long-term unemployment problems in drugdevastated areas "is equivalent to the building of prisons".
The £30 million targeted at youth services and heroin-affected areas is "completely inadequate in relation to dealing with the years of neglect in these areas". About £400 to £600 million was needed.
Ms Quigley said the campaign welcomed the idea of drug courts to deal with drug offenders, but they should not be seen as the final solution. "It's very easy to come up with another structure as being the answer to a problem."
In its submission, the campaign recommended drug awareness training for judges, solicitors, gardai and others working with addicts.
Two former heroin addicts from Dun Laoghaire, Mr Andrew Mahon (35) and Mr James Gaynor (33) addressed the forum. "The people who are most at risk from heroin addiction are always teenagers," Mr Mahon said. "The information available to teenagers can be summed up in a few words, along with a few pictures of hardcore junkies who look pathetic and lost and the few words, `don't do drugs, they're bad'. "
