Sir, - Fintan O'Toole's column of June 3rd contains a faulty analysis of Dublin's drug problem. The following sentence, "What we have, then, are huge numbers of recreational drug-users, some of whom go on to become addicts", is in my view, very misleading as it depicts heroin addiction here as an outcome of recreational drug use.
Dublin has two broad categories of drug abuse. First and foremost heroin use is firmly anchored in distinct socio-economic settings. Official neglect over generations created conditions of educational, economic and social exclusion. This is the real trigger of Dublin's heroin epidemic.
Handing out heroin, as Fintan O'Toole seems to recommend, is not an answer. Radical transformation of the underlying educational, economic and social realties coupled with imaginative and sustained "demand reduction" initiatives as part of a comprehensive anti-drugs strategy is the starting point.
Curbing the availability of heroin is also an integral part of such a strategy. This is primarily a policing issue and although poor policing in the past is part of the legacy of neglect it is wrong for Fintan O'Toole to dismiss policing as a "lost war". Insofar as there has been a "drugs war", it has been one waged against working-class communities by highly organised drug criminals.
There is in contemporary society a huge "recreational drugs" problem. Generally speaking, this does not have its roots in economic and social disadvantage. It has its own complex set of circumstances, causes and consequences, some of which were alluded to in The Irish Times Editorial of June 3rd. - Yours, etc.
Ald Michael Conaghan, Lally Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10.