Drug dealing and related drug use are destroying lives, families and communities in every part of the country. Today, drug use spans all parts of the country, urban and rural and affects all social classes.

The 2006/2007 Drug Prevalence Survey entitled “Drug Use in Ireland and Northern Ireland” was carried out by the National Drugs Advisory Committee in the Republic and Northern Ireland.

On the island of Ireland one in four respondents to this survey aged between 15-64 years (25%) reported taking illegal drugs at some stage of their life. After cannabis (22%), the most commonly reported drugs ever used were: magic mushrooms (6%), ecstasy (5%), cocaine (5%), amphetamines (4%), poppers (3%), LSD (3%), solvents (2%), crack (0.6%) and heroin (0.4%).

For the individual, drug use can have a devastating impact on a person’s health and social and economic situation. For those living in communities where drug use is most prevalent, the problems of intimidation and violence, often associated with drug related debt and perpetrated by the gangs supplying these drugs have an extremely destructive effect.

The graph below illustrates trends in the number of seizures by gardaí and customs between 2000 and 2006. There has been a continuous upward trend in cocaine in cocaine seizures, with cocaine bypassing heroin seizures for the first time 2004.

Drug Dealing and Organised Crime

Drug dealing in Ireland is inextricably linked with organised criminal activity activity, particularly in our major cities where rivalry between competing criminal gangs can culminate in extreme violence and murder.

In order to successfully investigate these crimes, Gardaí need the help of the community and constantly encourage people with knowledge of the crimes to come forward and cooperate with them. The investigations are, by their nature challenging, but when working together with communities Gardaí are in a better position to bring them to a successful conclusion by making arrests and securing convictions in the courts.

People who take drugs cannot divorce their own decisions from the violence associated with organised criminality. In recent times Gardaí have seen attempts to import weapons along with drug consignments.

In early September, the Gardaí seized the biggest haul of gangland weaponry in the history of the State following a four-month international operation into the activities of a leading Dublin criminal. Forty-one firearms, mostly destined for crime gangs in Dublin and Limerick, were seized in the operation, which involved police and customs from the Republic, Northern Ireland and the Netherlands.

Drugs – The International Picture

The illegal drugs trade is a massive global industry, with a highly sophisticated international supply chain. According to the United Nations illegal drugs make up eight per cent of world trade and are worth more than the combined global market for textiles, clothing, iron and steel. The United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime estimates the value of the global illicit drug market for the year 2003 at US$322–$400 billion, with over 200 million drug users worldwide.

Cannabis -marihuana, hashish, - leads by far with 162 million users. ATS -amphetamine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, methcathinone - follow with 35 million users. Globally, an estimated 16 million people use opiates -opium, morphine, heroin, synthetic opiates- and some 13 million people use cocaine.

The UN’s International Narcotics Control Board noted some newly emerging trends in its Annual Report of 2007 including:

· The emergence of new drugs smuggling routes into Europe, in particular cocaine from South America being stockpiled and repackaged in west Africa before entering Europe.
· Increased cultivation of coca bushes - from which cocaine is derived - in Peru and Bolivia as crop eradication programmes reduce production in Colombia.
A 17% increase in illicit opium poppy cultivation during 2007 in Afghanistan. The country now accounts for 93% of the global market in opiates.