You realize how much tax has been saved with the model in Switzerland and Portugal?…..

Saved on Garda overtime, saved on customs overtime and saved on free legal aid. Do you honestly think the vested interests will stand for that?

Ah the “invite them into your house” rubbish looks like the right wing reckon that works for everything. Then they’ll moan about homelessness.

It would save tax payer millions ya pair of dopes.

While I’d rather there be no drug addicts in Dublin, that’s never going to happen soon would prefer a centre for them to do it safely for both themselves and everyone else’s good. You’d be silly to think taxpayers money isn’t going towards gardai arresting them for abusing on the streets, clean up of the mess they leave behind and any hospital care needed for preventable overdoses, rehab and plenty more facilities. I would rather they be confined to a designated area without my child or anyone else stumbling across used needles in any given place.

You do realise that the injection centres are purely for taking drugs and junkies are entitled to leave and travel around the city afterwards, they also are immune from prosecution for carrying in city centre so gardai wouldn’t be able to move them on or remove them from the streets for being off their heads.

‘ You’d be silly to think taxpayers money isn’t going towards gardai arresting them for abusing on the streets’
Any proof of this?
As far as I can see drug addicts openly and freely use drugs on the streets, day in day out, and no one does a thing about it.
Look at the number of articles on the Journal alone highlighting the cavalier attitude on the streets of the capital.
I live in Waterford , where addicts are becoming more and more open in their use, I visited Dublin for a day recently, a city I know quite well having worked there for a few years , sat outside the Asian market in Drury Street to drink a coffee and in the time I was there five junkies tapped me up for money.
As far as I can see the Gardai completely ignore the problem.

How many of these addicts were just an ordinary Joe so they tried it once found it gave them a real kick, next thing you know they’re addicted, did these drug addicts plan to be a drug addicts?

Yes they often turn out to be the sc!um of the earth and its very hard to have any sympathy, I’ve no fix have you?

My sympathies to you, your comment says more about you than the people who died.

Moss, with the best will in the world, it’s difficult for us normal folk to identify with people who destroy their lives and those around them in this way. Be careful climbing down off that horse, it’s very high.

I find it hard to have any sympathy for people who leave their dirty needles in playgrounds or on buses and trams.

Neal, do yo think certain people are more prone to addiction?

Gary Power.. You utter bag of sh!t

Ahh here comes the hug a tug brigade…let’s here how there all victims…leaving dirty needles round the place ..

@ Gary & Neal, if any of your kids/grandkids or nieces/nephews ever have a drug problem when they grow up I’m sure you’ll look at things differently.

*thug* *hear* *they are* *dope*

You want to stop dirty needles on the street Gaz? Injection centres then yeah?

@john doe if any relatives of kine developed a drug problem, it would be there own and not mine as I wouldn’t have any dealings with them.. You don’t just end up being tricked into addiction it’s very much a choice to start on drugs. So if you start you should expect that family may make the choice to avoid you

I think that’s a great idea Charlie. Can’t see it happening any time soon though.

Your brother gary

Thanks John for translating.

@Mark Ryan, you’ll make one hell of a father with that attitude. Some ppl make mistakes in life, thankfully thousands of these ppl recover and get their life back together with the love and support of their family. I’d hate to be related to somebody like you.

Mark Ryan, would you also disown a relative if they were an alcoholic?

Gary, thanks for that. It makes the loss of my brother so much easier. And for the record he never robbed anyone. He was a kind person who actually gave me a loan for college just last year.

Heroin use has increased in Portugal since decriminalisation.
In the US states where marijuana has been legalised heroin use has increased rapidly and is fast becoming a middle class problem.
As in any aspect of life once something becomes culturally embedded, a process which is facilitated by legalisation/social acceptance it becomes virtually impossible then to eradicate that force from society.
Legalisation of drugs will result in an increase of drug use and dependency.
And remember:
The legitimacy or otherwise of a drug such as heroin has little bearing on is fatal abilities.

Absolutely Rouzert. Although many don’t view it as such the medical community have recognised addiction as a disease. Considering the negative consequences of an addiction and the cost both financial and social, it’s not a choice any rational person would choose. It’s a compulsion.And criminalising addicts actually makes it harder for them to turn their lives around due to having a criminal record.

While I would favour decriminalising, control and regulation of cannabis usage legalising heroin and cocaine would lead to even more deaths from misuse.

In a huge office with a view of Vienna, Yuri Fedotov says: “Legalization is the wrong approach.” Fedotov, a Russian, has hands the size of frying pans and, for almost three years now, has been the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Fedotov rattles off a few figures: Alcohol, a legal drug, kills about 2.3 million people worldwide each year. Tobacco kills 5.1 million. With illegal drugs, on the other hand, the numbers are much lower, with 200,000 people a year falling victim to heroin, cocaine or crack. For the UN, this number illustrates the success of prohibition.

Legalising cannibas actually has a knock on effect on other drugs by not putting cannibas users in contact with criminals in the first place. No opportunity for them to push harder drugs.

Yes Martin I’m not sure legalisation is the way to go but I do think criminalising addicts is not the best approach either. If the pain and suffering they cause their families and those around them, coupled with the threat to their life and the financial cost is not enough to deter them, the chance of a conviction won’t either. But where relationships and health can be healed after an addict makes it to recovery, a conviction is for life and seriously impacts their ability to become a productive member of society, which may in fact lessen their resolve to try to get well. We are essentially punishing ill people because of their compulsive disease.