Give it a couple of decades where we keep our heads in the sand concerning how our society deals with drugs and I’ll guarantee – although we may not have the same miser rate per capita – we will certainly witness the same brutality. Leave a business, and it is a business, worth billions of dollars/euros in the hands of outlaws and they will kill each other, and innocent bystanders, for control. There’s not a scrap of evidence over 70 years that prohibition works yet we continue to escalate the problem as a society by not changing how we tackle the problem in a way that cuts out criminals. It’s a crazy world.

Glen, do you propose that we legalise the use of cocaine, ketamine, morphine for recreational use? The legalisation of weed alone our not going to stop criminality.

Well, in actual fact Shanners, I do (in most cases, crack, heroin, PCP etc should be de-criminalised and resources put into treatment). Illegality does nothing to stop certain citizens using these drugs, they are freely available anyway – and there’s a very compelling argument to say that illegality may in fact help to increase their usage. A drug addiction should be treated as a medical problem, not a criminal one. Its certainly not an easy scenario to comprehend for most, but I would prefer my kids to see those hard drugs for what they are: mind altering chemicals with the potential to do great damage, not some mind opening present from the gods kept from them by a cruel, uncaring and hypocritical society. But it’s not as simple as that either. Any change of strategy must be backed up with real education, not the ‘just say no’ BS that simpletons believe work.

On the weed scenario, if you work off the old equation that traffickers/dealers/producers plan for approx 10% to be confiscated, then on recent numbers the cannabis market is worth close to €1billion in this country alone. Take this amount of potential revenue from criminal gangs and you WILL save lives, and you will have closed off one avenue by which young people get involved in criminality.

Dhakina, you may have a go at me but why would you? I’ve been to southern Arizona a few times and have wanted to cross the border into Mexico but my friends family said it was not a good idea. Too dangerous with 20-30,000 dead in the drug wars between the cartels. Those drugs are flowing north into American cities. So anyone buying those drugs are part of the problem.

This is exactly where we’re headed. It’s already here by the looks of things just not on the same scale yet. Bring in a 3 strikes and your out 10 year mandatory sentence

Yourself and scrapcrokepark1 are a couple of pessimists to say the very least! We don’t compare in any way to the Mexican gang problems and mentioning Irish and Mexican gangs in the same sentence is sensationalim. Can’t see the day when dozens of mutilated corpses get dumped on the side of the m50.

6 year old girl. Clearly not a parent. Hopefully.

My apologies, I didn’t read the full article and if I had known about a six year old victim I would not have attempted a joke. I just have no time for these cartels and no time for people who buy and use drugs who keep these low life’s in busy.

Business

Did juicy what Alan said! I agree!

Notwithstanding your apology Declan, it was a crass comment. You forgot to mention the four wounded children between the ages of 3 and 14. Is it possible that the other injured and deceased people were ordinary decent people also? And even if they weren’t, is it okay to make a joke about it?

Jim barry, did you not note my apologies!

Declan, note my use of the word, notwithstanding, and the rest of my comment.

I apologized. What more can I do?

No hard feelings, Declan, you’re right. As it happens, I agree with the point you make about people who buy and use drugs.