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Heroin and headshops
Opinion: Drugs will always be a part of some people's lives.
On a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning as I was strolling into work in Dublin City Centre, I was on another planet trying to think of a way I could escape work and enjoy the sun. Suddenly, I was quiet alarmingly pulled back to reality. Standing to my left was a man, nothing particularly out of the ordinary about him but I got an awful vibe and fear ran down my spine. He had parching eyes and I knew he was a straight talking kinda guy.
He asked me, in broad day-light, as casually as anything if I wanted to buy any ‘coke’? Petrified I said no and scurried away as fast and confidently as I could. I know fear is something these people can smell a mile away.
My day in work wasn’t very busy, too much sunshine encouraging people to go anywhere but the men’s shoe department so I passed my day contemplating my earlier affair when a thought struck me. I started to think I was wrong about my opinion on head shops and wondered if, we in Ireland are using head-shops as a scapegoat? In the UK, parts of Europe and even here in our emerald isle there is talk of making heroin legal and in some countries there is even talk that the government hands it out for free.
Right or wrong? Who knows? Err... we do...???
Illegal and legal drugs are a problem throughout the world and certainly a prevalent one here in Ireland. Legal drugs bring with them crime, high-speed gun firing chases down the M50, gang warfare and intimidation. Legal highs bring with them protest and burnt out shops. Both legal and illegal highs have the potential to cause death and addiction.
The part I don’t understand is, why people ignore the Irish drug problem but absolutely insist that head shops do not have a place in our society? I’ve never heard of a full-time drug dealing pimp being burnt out of their home. Perhaps fear is what protects these dealers and perhaps we are taking out our anger at the situation on head shops because we know the proprietor won’t blow our heads off.
If we ban the head shops, it is quite possible that our actions will only create a surge of demand for illegal substitutes. Let’s face it, it’s just as easy to go into a head shop and purchase a high as it is to step onto the street and source it from a dealer.
On the other hand, will allowing head shops to remain open just create a world of temptation for people? Instead of hitting the pub after a hard day, perhaps one might be tempted to purchase a ‘low risk’ drug based substitute, perhaps even encouraging people to seek more and more dangerous and varied highs. It is quite possible that the purchase of legal highs may lead people to want to try harder drugs? Or it could put people off ‘getting high’ all together.
Each individual is different. But when it comes to drugs it’s time we accept that any grown adult who takes drugs does so at their own peril. In Ireland, we need to protect those who have got caught up in the drug world, are manipulated and blackmailed by the drug world and are too afraid to leave the drug world.
In the world of head shops, there is no crime, no murder, no prostitution. Perhaps we should accept that drugs will always be a part of some people’s lives and perhaps we should consider the possibility that it’s much safer to purchase your drugs from a store than a low life.
By: Claire Finnegan
