Where do you get your smoke from?

I read recently in the local paper that of all the threats in our society, of all the horrors inflicted upon us by the drudgery of everyday life, heroin is the worst. And we need to put everything we can into solving this most henious social problem. I know this because it was front page news. Heroin. Feckin', heart-rending, vein-collapsing, train-spotting heroin. Extend the battle against heroin to Galway, cries the Minister For Being in Hot Water, Frank Fahey. Coz God help us if it ever gets here. We'll be fucked. Galway will fall down around our ears.

Holy Christ. Has the man nothing better to be campaigning against?

I wonder why no one (apart from good ol' dependable Herr Michael McDowell) bothers to make some sort of statement on and against cocaine use in Irish cities? Is it because cocaine is a weekend drug, taken by middle-class, nice people as well as by scumbags? And heroin, on the other hand, is mostly abused by the most wretched and vulnerable bastards in the land. There's fuck all problem with cocaine, because people who like a bump of a weekend can afford to pay for it. There's everything wrong with heroin, because people who take it can't afford to pay for it. Mostly because they're flat on their backs dribbling instead of working - not that being flat on your back dribbling stopped anyone getting into the civil service. Anyway.

I can't stand the double standards worn proudly by people in this country on the issue of drug use.

Heroin = bad. Junkies steal your telly.
Cannabis = perfectly acceptable. Sure, we all like a smoke.
Cocaine = erm... doable. It wouldn't do to be telling decent hardworking people what they can put into themselves. And it keeps you sober.
LSD: Do I look like a fucking hippy?
Valium: Oh, don't be stupid. We all need calming down sometimes.
Alcohol: Fuck, yeah! Rise up yer skirts!
Nicotine = Smelly, dirty stuff. Apart from when I'm a bit drunk. Mmmm, faaaag.
Ecstasy = YOU'LL DIE! ARGH! ONE PILL COULD KILL YOU! ARGH! YOU NEVER KNOW WHICH ONE IS THE BAD ONE! ARGH!

I could go on, but I don't want to send you into a coma.

I was almost inexplicably upset by Brenda "Stop the _____ by shaming the ____" Power's column in the Sunday Times on the 17th. Despite my being able to sympathise with her absolute disgust at the recent maimings of two Limerick children in an alleged gangland retaliation, her article showed an appaling lack of insight into our own responsibilities for what happened. She whinges about drug gangs holding working class communities hostage to the whims of the biggest, baddest dealers - she doesn't once ask where these drug gangs come from. She doesn't make much of the fact that the attackers in this instance were children themselves. She doesn't ask what on earth could have made two teenage boys carry out such a vile attack. She calls them "cowardly, strutting henchmen"; really? Does she really think that these kids who get involved in gangland activities are strutting henchmen? Did she once ask if they too might have been in over their heads? Does she believe that the incineration of the car in which Gavin and Millie McNamara were sitting was the brainchild of two bored teenagers? Or were they teenagers who were offered money to get the dirty job done for a more "senior" criminal? Did they even have a choice?

And while she's at it, while she's calling drug dealers "grubby, violent, mindless thugs", would it be too much to ask where these occupations come from? Our own appetites for illegal substances, Brenda! The little bit of smoke we get from a friend, the little wrap of coke on a night out. All have to come from somewhere - where from? From people who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by getting involved in a business equally ruthless and lucrative, that's where. And in turn we're contributing to misery in Afghanistan and Columbia and anywhere else far away that we shouldn't have to think too deeply about. Why should the people of Moyross and similar estates and areas in our urban centres suffer due to gangs operating outside their homes? They shouldn't, naturally. Why are they, though, Brenda? Why don't you get stuff like this happening in Sandymount and Dooradoyle and Montenotte and Taylor's Hill?

Yes, what happened to those two children was horrific, and yes, you'd have to be some sort of unfeeling arsehole not to be upset about it. But no, the whys aren't cut and dry, and the blame isn't that easy to shift.