Deputy Dr. Byrne gave notice he proposed to raise on the Adjournment the following matter: arrangements in relation to the control of drug abuse in Dublin.
Adjournment Debate: Dublin Drug Abuse.
I wish to raise the question of the abuse of drug-taking and the freedom with which drugs of different types are available in Dublin and other urban areas. It is to our horror that recently we had in Dublin two sacrilegious offences in two of our finest churches. It is because of this that I have asked with your permission, Sir, to discuss this at this unusual time, following the Taoiseach's Adjournment Debate. I feel the urgency of this matter warrants that it be discussed here because we are going into recess for three months and already we have signs appearing on the horizon that drug abuse is on the increase in Dublin.
As I said, in the past few days we have witnessed two sacrilegious offences and these could only have been committed under the influence of drugs. I am not talking here about ethynol or alcohol; I am talking about drugs which can change a person's personality. A person can have a personality which during the day, while free of drug intoxication, will render him amenable to participation in normal life in society, but following the abuse of his system by drugs, following drugs being made freely available to him, we see the drastic effects and the stage to which such a person can be driven. We see in this evening's Evening Press that in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin there was a card-playing school at the foot of the altar of the Virgin Mary.
How is this connected with drug taking in Dublin?
I claim that no person in his proper senses but only somebody under the influence of drugs, who has obtained drugs freely in this city— because drugs are readily and freely available in Dublin—would commit such an offence as occurred in the Pro-Cathedral and which also occurred a few days ago 50 yards from my own house in Our Lady of Victories Church in Ballymun. I want to say that the drugs, the sale of which the Minister prohibited by a recent Act, are available in this city. I know they are available because constituents of mine have reported to me that they are available but unfortunately they will not tell me the exact source from which they get them. I also know from my contacts in the docklands that drugs are coming in through Dublin port and indeed through other ports. I am also aware that the constituent necessary for the production of marijuana is being harvested in this country. The drugs which are available and which are being abused to a great extent, and the Minister for Health will agree with me, are the tranquillising drugs, the drug called valium, the drug called, in drug circles, "the blue", and another drug, a sleeping tablet, called mandrax which is taken to put people into a very severe, dazed condition. It is these and the free availability of these drugs that has brought me here at this unusual time to raise this issue.
I want to tell the Minister for Health that it is possible for a person, malingering, feigning psychiatric conditions, to obtain a prescription from a doctor in the suburbs and by going from one doctor to another, by being well versed in symptoms and mimicking signs, he can obtain freely at 12 hospitals in the Dublin area during one week prescriptions which he can have filled at relatively little cost. The last time I raised this matter here was approximately nine months ago. Nothing has been done since to stem this abuse. In fact, I would go so far as to say that drug abuse and the availability of drugs on prescription, forged prescriptions and otherwise, has got out of control. It is at a crisis point. I want to say that drug pushers, as we know them, are not drugs to the com-people who bring drugs to the community are not people who use the drugs because they know the danger and the addictive qualities of them and they know the financial rewards that can be gained from the peddling of these drugs.
I want to say that, if a person should be apprehended for peddling drugs or pushing drugs, the severest penal servitude available in the State should be imposed on that person. I want to go further and say that, if there is a known case of somebody who has caused the death of any member of our community, with particular reference to the teenagers, the reintroduction of the death penalty should be considered by the Government. The death penalty should be imposed in such a case on the drug pusher, who is completely free of addiction or of any psychiatric ailment and who is pushing drugs purely and simply for monetary gain.
It is a known fact that great hardship is caused in a family when a teenager has become habituated or addicted to drugs. It is also known that death comes rapidly following addiction to certain kinds of drugs. We can bear with the benzedrine, dexedrine and the stimulant type of drugs which the Minister has removed from the market. We can bear with the marijuana and the LSD, and "the blues" and the mandrax but when it gets to the morphine and the heroin stage, to the hardline, mainline type of drugs, which are being peddled freely in this city and in other cities, and when people die from these drugs, when the pusher is found the severest penalty which can be imposed should be imposed. No longer should the pusher be able to take the easy way out of a couple of months in a psychiatric home and then out again on the street to continue the dreadful work he is doing.
Recently we had the introduction of a special clinic in the Dublin area for the treatment of drug addicts. Some of us are aware, to our dismay, that drugs are in fact being brought in to patients while they are undergoing treatment. I should like the Minister to recommend to the Minister for Justice that the severest penalty be imposed upon pushers here. They are not necessarily all Irishmen. Some of them have come from as far away as America and some have come from England. They are undermining the will of our youth. It is not only the well-to-do who are affected: working-class children, teenagers, are affected too. It is widespread and it is associated with the widespread increase in vandalism, and, indeed, tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is again on the increase in this city. It is also associated with the vast increase which has occurred in the emotional sector of disease. It is not sufficient to say that the lucky ones die. For every one who dies there are hundreds who are maimed mentally, hundreds who will fill the wards of the psychiatric institutions in this country for years to come.
Deputy L'Estrange raised this here in 1966, four years ago, and he was told there was no problem. Deputy M. O'Leary brought it up in 1961 and he was told there was no problem. The Minister for Justice introduced a drug squad composed of four people to deal with the small crime of drug peddling in the city of Dublin. Recently he almost doubled it to seven. Due to the shorter working hours of the gardaí it is still an inadequate force and it gives recognition to the fact that this State only recognises a drug problem in Dublin city and ignores the problem elsewhere. It is not sufficient for us to pass over the hardline drug takers, the people who will drop out. The tragedy of our administration is that we are attempting to close the door after the horse has bolted.
In the lower income groups, the largest section of our population, we have widespread drug abuse. Alcoholism is a form of addiction to a drug called ethynol. The Minister discussed this problem very fully last week, unfortunately outside this House. He pointed out that one out of every 12 people will require institutional care——
I did not say that. I said that one out of every 11 going into a psychiatric home for institutional treatment was an alcoholic.
One out of every 11 going into psychiatric homes is going in for treatment for ethynol. This shows our population has a predisposition to taking drugs whether in the form of alcohol, methylated spirits, poteen, dexadrine, tranquillisers, or any other drug which will give them a feeling of euphoria. What will the situation be like if this trend continues unchecked? What will it be like unless the Minister for Health issues strong directives to every dispensary doctor in the city of Dublin and to every psychiatrist to cut down the tranquillisers they prescribe? He should investigate the possibility of introducing legislation to ensure that no patient will possess four, five, or six separate prescriptions from different general practitioners. He should take steps to prevent the forging of prescriptions. There should be a regional registration of general practitioners and of all doctors who are in practice. There is nothing to stop a person going into a printers and having prescriptions printed in the name of Dr. Higginbotham, or Dr. anything else, and presenting those to any chemist anywhere in Dublin. It is as easy as that to obtain some of the drugs I have mentioned, the tranquillisers, not the more dangerous ones. We have done nothing to stop this. It has been brought to the attention of DMOs and others, but no really practical steps have been taken to prevent abuse. I say this as someone who has practical experience in this sphere. This country, a young nation, a nation with many problems at the moment economic and political, should attempt to set some example to the diseased world around us by wiping out drug abuse in this country before it gets completely out of hand, before we reach the pathetic stage that has been reached in Britain and where they have a register of drug addicts, before we decline to the level of the USA where the difference between the drug addict and the alcoholic is that the drug addict will kill to obtain drugs.
Deputy Byrne has been doing a beautiful piece of self-advertising by exaggerating wildly the state of drug-taking in this country. I hope he is pleased with himself for this beautiful piece of self-advertisement. Associating very much to be regretted vandalism in two churches with the apparent possibility that the people concerned are taking drugs is very good publicity for the newspapers, but it will not help us to end drug abuse. This is sheer self-advertisement on the part of Deputy Byrne. Would he please give me or the gardaí the evidence? He talks about an enormous increase. Let him give the evidence to the gardaí. Unless the evidence is given to the gardaí the gardaí can do nothing. The Deputy knows perfectly well that I and the health authorities have taken every possible step to deal with drug addiction here. I have also made it absolutely clear to everybody that I cannot stop drug addiction. No Minister for Health in any country in the world can stop it. Let us get rid then of this nonsense of pretending that by making a wordy speech Deputy Byrne can suddenly find a Minister for Health who overnight will eliminate drug abuse. All we can do is control it as far as lies within our power.
In the last two weeks I have given a complete description of what we have done in this matter. I have taken all advice given to me by the working party on drug abuse. The Garda drug squad has been increased; we have been in touch with the customs officers about the smuggling of drugs; we have been dealing with the possibility of forged prescriptions; we have banned the sale of most types of amphetamines from the shelves of chemists' stores—in company with only two other countries; we have ensured that drugs cannot be pilfered from hospitals, dispensaries and chemists' shops and I have a satisfactory report on this; we have established, or are establishing, three separate institutions for drug addicts. The matter is constantly subject to the attention of the Garda Síochána. We are also going to register the small number of persons dependent on drugs who are attending general practitioners.
I want to tell the country that I know the consumption of drugs is increasing but mercifully for us at the present time it is at a low level compared with most of the affluent countries. I know from the Garda Síochána that a large number of addicts in this country are not permanently hooked on drugs but take them from time to time. I also know that a considerable number of drug addicts are delinquents in other ways and are not normal members of society. They are just as likely to be picked up by the gardaí for one form or another of delinquency as they are to be picked up for drug addiction.
I shall do my best in this matter but there is no crisis situation in regard to drug addiction in this country and I hope there will not be a crisis. It is no use for a Deputy to get up in this House and make these statements without providing the evidence. I would ask not only Deputy Byrne but all the public to provide evidence to the Garda Síochána of suspected drug smuggling. They should provide any information of wrong action by medical practitioners which, of course, would be immediately dealt with by the Medical Association Ethical Committee. They should provide any information of any wrong action by pharmacists which would be dealt with immediately by the Pharmaceutical Association. One of the ways to prevent the spread of drugs is by people having the moral courage and decency to give to the authorities any information or even suspicion they may have in regard to the peddling of drugs.
This is a very paltry method of ending a long session of the Dáil and the most gloriously hypocritical aspect was the statement of Deputy Byrne that inevitably sacrilege was connected with drugs. Would the Deputy kindly give any evidence he has to the Garda Síochána that these two appalling outrages took place as a result of drug-taking?
The Dáil adjourned at 9.45 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 28th October, 1970.