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GARDAÍ IN DUBLIN have arrested five people and seized a large quantity of drugs after a series of raids in Dublin yesterday.
An initial search of an address on Crumlin Road led to the arrests of four men aged in their 20s and 30s.
Subsequently, Gardaí raided five separate premises in and around Tallaght and Clondalkin, which led to the seizure of 50,000 tablets believed to be Ecstasy.
Equipment and chemicals used to manufacture the tablets were also discovered, and a woman aged in her 20s was arrested in Clondalkin.
The drugs have not yet undergone formal analysis, but Gardaí believe they have a street value of more than €500,000.
The five suspects are being held on suspicion of drug trafficking at Sundrive Road, Kevin Street and Kilmainham Garda stations.
Yesterday’s operation was carried out by members of the Garda National Drugs Unit and local Gardaí in Tallaght, Ronanstown and Crumlin.
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Who pays €10 for a pill these days? Seriously over estimating the value of the haul.
You can get 3or 4for a tenner now even back in the day it was 10 for 70€.gardai inflating the price of drugs to make themselves look good
Remember paying £30 for mad b@5tard back in 1992 when there was a bit of a shortage. Mind you, I was off me biscuit for about 12 hours.
The ones in the picture look great
I remember reading a Garda haul report where they estimated a pill at €14. You might get that at about 3 in the morning…….at a rave…..in prison.
Pills are a tenner a pop these days
Brian, you might want to talk with neenee above. :)
Haha made me larf, true as though.
This will not stop a single person from taking this drug, it’s time to end the drug war and it’s time for a wider reform of our justice system so that were sending people to prison for violent crimes rather than not paying RTE a fee.
Blanket legalization, putting them on sale beside the Solphadene …we can’t do it that way, as it’s the only way things could actually get worse than now, so instead I propose the following:
Phase 1: Decriminalize USE, all personal use by those over 18. Have the Minister for Justice sign a blanket pardon for anyone currently in prison for drug use, production for private use etc
Away from the suburbs, under special guard, have large centers, three wedge buildings, one section a treatment centre, one a safe injection site and needle exchange with EMT’s and nurses (that way we keep syringes off the streets, less HIV, and if someone overdoses there are medics there) and the third segment to be kept for the next phase.
Have the Garda head of each district draw up a list of the key gangland drug guys from their area, and plan out an arrest with the RSU/ERU and army backup.
Phase 2: Tender to a private company the production of recreational drugs on a special state license, that company ONLY is allowed to produce the drugs. The state keeps all the profits and they go straight into a new drugs agency with as many new staff as possible. The company gets a flat service fee as part of the contract, per year, it makes the same regardless of how many drugs are sold. There is no marketing or advertising done, the drugs are only able to be bought there with a special card that monitors use and staff dispense advice or offer services appropriate to level of use (but never refuse sale).
The night before this company opens operations sweep up all the people on the list and intern them for life.
The same night pass a new drugs law making production outside the new system illegal, and sale to someone under 18 carry life with hard labour.
The drrugs bought here must be consumed here, they cannot be taken out of the country with you..
We’d need to have cross partisan agreement on this policy because eventually , safer drugs or not, someone is going to die.
Phase 3: All former Garda drugs operations members now focus on violent crime.
This would be a far better use of talent, money and resources than this p1ssing against the wind we have now.
You’re some tool-box! You obviously have no real world experience of; Drug abuse/addiction, the legal system, law enforcement, government agencies, competition authorities…I’m gonna stop now or I’d be here all evening!
Beautifully debated Mark. “Your argument is stupid, but I’d be here all evening explaining why, so I’m just right.” Your skills are wasted here, there is a middle eastern conflict to resolve, and Syria really needs someone with such magnificent skills of negotiation. Away with you, world peace awaits.
Good one, mark. Stand back everybody, we’ve got an intellectual badass here.
Sadly Mark I grew up seeing it all first hand which is why I didn’t need to pick up a single book in college to hold the opinion that the drug war was a failure.
Anyone, anywhere, anytime can get drugs.
My way the odd person will still die from the legal ones, if they have a preeixting set up for say SADS and the last thing they ought to be taking is something that rapidly raises their heartbeat, they buy an X tablet and head out clubbing…they’re gonna die sure. I think we should be adults about this and not pretend it’s harm elimination, but harm reduction.
But despite that possible down side there are the following good sides of my plan:
1. All the drug money is now going to addiction treatment and prevention services..consider the massive massive increase in funding these starved services will get and how many people they could help esp if, as I advocate, it’s ring fenced and can’t be used for other things.
2. The criminal gangs now have an 80% drop in income, so can no longer buy advanced weaponry, or can at least buy less, to fire around creches, at cops etc..
3. There are far less deaths because with the ingredients regulated and dosage controlled and warning labels people can more carefully control what they take
4. We provide a workable alternative to the drug war for other countries, which will help end a policy that has killed far more people than it has saved.
Legalise all drugs, great in theory. One little question I’d like to ask. When these legal drugs that will be available under supervision or willy nilly, start to have serious effects on the users body, what happens then? Who pays for treatment, hospitalisation, life long medication? These problems would have been self inflicted so why should those who decide they do not want to partake in legal drug taking have to pay for the other lot who do, will probably not work or contribute to society, and defiantly grow in size per head of population.
Just wondering if those paying the highest employment tax in Europe would be happy to see their rate go up again to facilitate legal drugs?
Alan – good questions. While I’m not 100% on the legalise everything frame of mind, I do support broad legalisation as long as adequate social supports are in place. Regarding your who pays question. I would like to see the tax money from narcotics go towards educational and rehab programs.
You say, that there are health problems with drug use, and who pays for that? The same could be said of alcos and obese people. Society pays. Lastly, for hardcore users and addicts, as opposed to the larger group of casual users, addicts won’t be around long to be a burden on the system.
When was the last time you saw an old junkie?
Alan, same can be said of alcohol and cigarettes, yet due to the tax rates on these products they still act as net contributors to the exchequer (perhaps debatable with alcohol when “carnage” is included in the figures, but other drugs being available would likely reduce this factor).
As long as it is thought out with a long term plan in place (no laughing) then it could be completely self funding and then some.
@Alan it will be the same as when 50% of smokers die from THEIR drug, liver damage from alcohol needs an advanced TIPS procedure to get their liver functioning again, the same as what happens when someone starts to take Oxycontin for extreme arthritis and ends up overusing it and causing renal damage that needs drugs to repair it…
We all pay for things that are not our own, I hear this all the time in the free college fees debate ”why should I pay for YOUR education”…well the same way I pay for your kids secondary school with my part time college jobs, the same reason I pay for the ambulance that picks you up when you have a heart attack…were a society.
Besides a policy that tries to punish people for vice would naturally come with hypocrisy, your vice is ok but mines not etc.
The premise of your worry is thankfully not correct though. The income from the drugs would be, as I said, retained by the state drugs agency I’d be creating so that would fund all addiction services and drugs education campaigns, and we could take say 25% of that and give it to the general health budget every year, that would offset the costs.
There is a second premise mistaken though, the same people take illegal drugs now are going to be taking legal ones post-this policy coming in. Not many new people are going to try them, they might be more likley to try the ‘softer’ ones cos they are safer being state regulated, but my proposals very careful to put it in the marketing campaign for the policy that narcotics sold by the state licensed company, while safer, are still dangerous by nature. I’d hope that would deter as many as possible from trying them. So we have the costs of the existing drug users and addicts borne by the health system ANYWAY, the only difference now would be:
1. The drugs , being safer, would do less damage (less overdoses etc)
2. We would have income from the sales to help offset these costs, money that is currently in the hands of criminals used to buy weapons to shoot at our cops.
Just so none of you misunderstand my proposal, the state in my proposal keeps ALL of the profits and the company running the thing gets a flat fee only, so there would be no need for taxing a % of any of it, since we’d be keeping ALL of it.
They will swipe their criminal loyalty cards and back on the streets within the hour..
Go to Garda station to get a form signed and you would be in there longer….
Ecstacy should be legalised along with pot. I’d probably give it preference!
As someone who took a lot of drugs in the 90′s, I think there are pros and cons to that debate. The pros obviously are that it takes the money out of criminal hands and ensures the drugs are clean, the cons being my short term memory is……damn I forgot what I was going to say!
Where do you think they get the money to buy AKs and Uzis and HKs? Drug money, they’d never be able to afford that stuff otherwise.
You make them legal, have all that money flowing into the health service instead of criminals pockets, and you will bankrupt them, they’d not be able to pull down the same cash running swag, burglarizing houses and hijacking trucks.
This policy is just not working
And LSD, one of the most harmless drugs in the world, no long term side effects… The greatest drug there is.
Killjoys.
No…..Gardai doing their job.
@Cosmo don’t despair, this operation did not stop a single person from taking an ecstasy tablet, now for one or two of them that might be a pity, for their sake, but that’s the reality.
I can’t believe there’s people on this actually talking seriously about legalising ecstasy tablets
Why shouldn’t they be? I’m not convinced either way, but you’ve not actually offered a reason those calling for legalisation are wrong.
One area they certainly should be made available is in psychiatric care. A considerable number of physiatrists say that it is very helpful in dealing with PTSD, and it annoys me no end that a politician with no medical experience can dictate to a highly qualified medic what they can and cannot use in the best interest of patients.
@Conor think past your natural instinct to recoil at the thought of a 3 pack of X tablets on sale in a chemest style shop for a second…think beyond that.
So much of the problem with bad policy in politics is that peoples opinions on the issue are based on their emotional or gut reactions to things rather than their logic.
Whats the reason any cop out there who is pro-drug war will give you for why they are illegal? I can tell you cos I’ve had this conversation a dozen times ”it funds crime” or ”they’re dangerous”.
So in the first case they will point out how the drugs fund crime gangs which lets them buy exotic weapons that gun their comrades down, in the latter they will talk about the example say of the speckled rolex pills that caused all those deaths because of dodgey ingredients.
Now realize the circular logic to that line of thinking…we have to keep them illegal because they fund crime…but they only fund crime because they are illegal, if we had a system like I’m proposing the money would be funding drug treatment services not crime.
So on to the danger..well there are several elements to narcotics in terms of their danger:
-Dose..overdosing is going to be harder when you can be sure it’s not mixed with anything and measure the doses out, way easier if it’s legal
-Addiction leading to diminishing returns leading to ever higher doses to get the same high leading to organ damage and death…that happens now just the same…is it not better to choose a model like mine and have vastly improved resources with which to help people trapped in that cycle?
Some are gonna have preexisting conditions they don’t know about and will still get damaged or killed with legal drugs but you have all the other advantages listed above, all the money is going to the right places, we can help far more people, there are far LESS deaths..it’s win win win.
Putting them on sale in Boots beside the Solphadene and sold to anyone endlessly would be a disaster sure, but if we did it in a controlled way we could have a far better set up.
@conorryan sure go and av a skip of pints conor and go home and bate the wife or double drop 2 yokes and go home and love her like u hav nvr before all while listening to some daycent tech house
No one to buy them grath brooks called off …. A 5 nite yoke feat over … Bring back sides and shaft when it was 10 for 70 ….
Christ, can you imagine coming up at a Garth Brooks gig.
I’m lost for words, just considering it.
That sounds hellish….
Idiotic comments from drug affected simpletons. The thread of stupidity runs right through a lot of the comments posted on the Journal. Thankfully the opinions of the mossbacks who post here do not reflect the opinions of the population in general.
It’s amazing. You’re so superior.
Mark, I must agree with you but it is not that difficult to be superior in this company.
Pickarse- is you’re ivory tower too warm this weather?
A loyalist with a misplaced superiority complex? Well, I never.
Pickart’s on the crack pipe again!!
@Silent: a loyalist who is anti-drugs!! Well I never.
@roland, only a loyalist is who is anti LEGAL drugs. I wonder why, not like there’s a conflict of interest there, right?
@Pickhart you will find that most of the people support some model of legalization because it seems logical to them, not because they themselves use drugs, the illegality of drugs does not make them impossible to get.
You also have not countered any of the specific pro-legalization arguments, you can’t just declare someones outlook crap and expect people to take your side without putting up an argument that counters theres, that’s not how politics works.
When someone on the fence sees our thought out logcial arguments and then looks to the blank space where yours should be…they realize whos right.
You’re right that in many cases the people who post on here don’t represent the outside world, the outside population tends to be more progressive on most issues and less reactionary thatn those on here, but drug legalization is one of those trends like same sex marriage, it’s been going one way and one way only, Genearation Y and half of Generation X are pro legalization to some degree, all the focus group studies I’ve seen, and one that I’ve done as a political consultant, show that the majority are holding back a bit not because they think the drug war is working, but they just want to hear a legalization policy that is not ”open season”, they don’t want to make them legal the same way booze is legal with no controls or oversight where companies can mix them in with soft drinks etc, they want a more contained moderate policy than that…but they don’t oppose the concept..the trends going one way.
Badly drawn boys would disagree with the illogical stance of a commital to an eighteen policy in the first phase Ryan.
You want them to be able to sell cocaine to 14 year olds?
Why? If we allowed that the policy would not only never get off the ground, but if that was part of it , it would end the career of anyone proposing it, they’d never be taken seriously on anything ever again.
With an adult you can make the case that they are a grown adult taking their own risks. I know half the 20somethings in Ireland can’t even iron their own shirts and may as well be 15, but we have to set a line somewhere.
This would mean the only market left for drug dealers would be to sell to under 18s, which is why I say intern them before they can refocus, and for those coming up to replace them make them understand they’d best stick to running swag and robbing cars because if they get caught selling even marijuana to someone under 18 they’re going to prison until they die of old age.
You would further have universal agreement from all sides on coming down hard on any who tried to refocus their market on under 18s, nobody would disagree with taking a sledgehammer to them, even the former legalization advocates would be with us.
Now if you mean not locking up a 16 year old for smoking a joint, I’m not suggesting we do that, I’m suggesting we have to continue to fight drug use among under 18s because …well they’re kids…they don’t know what they’re doing.
Not saying put them in prison but if they’re found using them, confiscate the drugs and bring them home or to a treatment center depending on the case.
When analysts is done they will probably be shown to be some analog of MDMA, that’s super dangerous,
Tenner a yoke what planet are yas living on ??? Ya’d get 5 for a tenner
have your say