Michael Shaw Mahoney with a review of a book on the drugs trade in the North of Ireland. Michael Shaw Mahoney gained a M.A. in Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast (1997). He currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

Northern Ireland is the most studied, most dissected spot on the planet. As an object of fascination, as a place where there remains a problem to every solution, the six county state demands fresh perspectives and analytical ingenuity. John Lindsay provides just that. With his recent book No Dope Here? Anti-Drugs Vigilantism in Northern Ireland,  Lindsay explores the history of illegal drugs and their control from onset of The Troubles to the present day. Such a perspective shines a new light on paramilitarism. It also reveals the shifting values of a traditionally conservative place, a small place that lies at the fringes of a much more liberal, less reactionary Europe.
 


The Troubles have lowered a dark cloak over the illegal substances debate. At the outset of his book, Lindsay points out the difficulty of finding and settling upon the proper terminology for the victims of drugs-related violence. Whether casualties of internal feuds, falsely accused targets of vendettas, or hoods beyond someone's pale, these victims, Lindsay suggests, receive the rough justice of a stressed state where an incredible amount of hypocrisy obfuscates issues of economic control and addiction. On the latter front, Lindsay notes in passing that alcohol and nicotine are addictive drugs. And they are definitely the drugs of choice in Northern Ireland. Exotic substances like cannabis, or the more infamous products of Colombia and Afghanistan, do not have nearly the same degree of sway over the people of the province. 

Attempts to cleanse communities of drugs, to purge both dealers and users with punishment shootings and beatings, are the book often reminds us cruel and unjust. These non-transparent forms of "justice" are mere covers for the control of cash and the maintenance of authority with vigilantes practicing barbaric abuse in the guise of community service. And of course the vigilantes, republican and loyalist alike, are engaged in yet another crusade against supply, one that ignores the persistence of demand and its underlying causes. In all this, the traditional and socially acceptable mood altering substances get a complete pass.

No Dope Here? Anti-Drugs Vigilantism in Northern Ireland documents republican and loyalist responses to drugs. Lindsay covers the whole period from the late sixties to the current Post-Good Friday Agreement era. Because the book tries to throw its arms around such a big chunk of history, some tales seem thin, the people in them only sketched in pencil. Lindsay's exhaustive research, however, yielded opinion from a wide range of players. The voices we do hear, the voices of gunmen, apologists, police, victims and their families emerge from the dark and then quickly disappear like the disembodied faces in a Becket play. A few individuals seem more fully drawn. They leave an impression.


Funeral of Jimmy Brown
Jimmy Brown is one such person. Brown assumed a leadership role in the IPLO, a group formed by disaffected members of the INLA. With Brown's approval, the IPLO engaged in the drugs trade to fund a quasi left-wing revolutionary movement. Brown would not survive, nor would the IPLO. In the dangerous seas of West Belfast, they were small fish. Dubbed pushers by the Provisionals, the IPLO was all but doomed. Brown died as the result of an internal feud while the IPLO was wiped out in less than 48 hours, its ranks blasted into oblivion during two nights of coordinated attacks by PIRA in 1992.

Much of Lindsay's book describes the Byzantine world of loyalist paramilitaries. Not surprisingly, he shows us a UVF and UDA awash in drugs, its members dealing and using with almost shameless zeal. Inevitably, there is the story of Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair and his establishment as a drugs-funded UDA boss based in the Lower Shankill. When Adair and his remaining supporters are forced to flee Northern Ireland, we read a policeman's wry comment that, "It's like the end of The Godfather, but in reverse - it's the victory of the five other Mafia families over the Corleones."

The intriguing story of Raymond McCord's battle with loyalist paramilitaries also receives considerable attention. McCord, his son murdered by the UVF in 1997, wrote Justice for Raymond, a personal account from which Lindsay quotes liberally. "The fact was that I was telling the truth and the UVF couldn't handle that," McCord writes, "Their leadership may have been opposed to drugs at one time, but people put in charge of certain areas were knee deep in drug dealing and they did nothing to stop them." Even prior to his son's murder, McCord was the target of threats and sought help from Nancy Gracey and her fledgling organisation Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT). The author describes the brave efforts of FAIT. He also documents how the organisation was compromised by unscrupulous figures, accusations of state sponsorship, and shoddy accounting.     

While Lindsay maintains a distant, objective tone in most of his study, at times his editorial voice does appear. In the book's early parts, the personal is almost completely sacrificed to the greater goal of providing a comprehensive look at the history of drugs and drug-related violence in Northern Ireland. When Lindsay does enter the fray, he is a father, a father in Derry protecting his young daughters. "In March 2000 I witnessed something that looked very much like a punishment beating," Lindsay writes. 


Target of a punishment shooting
Bending to local custom, he opted to lodge a complaint not with the RUC but at his nearest Sinn Féin office. He left a tad frightened, unsatisfied. "I was, and still am, uncertain whether I did the right thing in not ignoring the incident. Perversely perhaps, I think that I was angrier that my children had witnessed the incident than I was that it had taken place at all."

Such is the effect of several decades of violence. Lindsay recognizes a jostled moral compass, not only his but Northern Ireland's as a whole. In dealing with drugs and so-called anti-social behaviour, the vigilantes effectively established a whole new sliding scales of justice. Whole new levels of violence became acceptable, common, invisible. 

 As Lindsay notes:

A suspected drug dealer, car thief or burglar who has been shot has not been shot because he is suspected of drug dealing, car theft or burglary. He has been shot because the person who shot him believes that it is acceptable to fire a bullet into the body of an unarmed human being.


  • John Lindsay, 2012, No Dope Here? Anti-drugs Vigilantism in Northern Ireland. Derry: Yes Publications. ISBN 1873832524

         

No Dope Here? Anti-Drug Vigilantism in Northern Ireland

Michael Shaw Mahoney with a review of a book on the drugs trade in the North of Ireland. Michael Shaw Mahoney gained a M.A. in Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast (1997). He currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

Northern Ireland is the most studied, most dissected spot on the planet. As an object of fascination, as a place where there remains a problem to every solution, the six county state demands fresh perspectives and analytical ingenuity. John Lindsay provides just that. With his recent book No Dope Here? Anti-Drugs Vigilantism in Northern Ireland,  Lindsay explores the history of illegal drugs and their control from onset of The Troubles to the present day. Such a perspective shines a new light on paramilitarism. It also reveals the shifting values of a traditionally conservative place, a small place that lies at the fringes of a much more liberal, less reactionary Europe.
 


The Troubles have lowered a dark cloak over the illegal substances debate. At the outset of his book, Lindsay points out the difficulty of finding and settling upon the proper terminology for the victims of drugs-related violence. Whether casualties of internal feuds, falsely accused targets of vendettas, or hoods beyond someone's pale, these victims, Lindsay suggests, receive the rough justice of a stressed state where an incredible amount of hypocrisy obfuscates issues of economic control and addiction. On the latter front, Lindsay notes in passing that alcohol and nicotine are addictive drugs. And they are definitely the drugs of choice in Northern Ireland. Exotic substances like cannabis, or the more infamous products of Colombia and Afghanistan, do not have nearly the same degree of sway over the people of the province. 

Attempts to cleanse communities of drugs, to purge both dealers and users with punishment shootings and beatings, are the book often reminds us cruel and unjust. These non-transparent forms of "justice" are mere covers for the control of cash and the maintenance of authority with vigilantes practicing barbaric abuse in the guise of community service. And of course the vigilantes, republican and loyalist alike, are engaged in yet another crusade against supply, one that ignores the persistence of demand and its underlying causes. In all this, the traditional and socially acceptable mood altering substances get a complete pass.

No Dope Here? Anti-Drugs Vigilantism in Northern Ireland documents republican and loyalist responses to drugs. Lindsay covers the whole period from the late sixties to the current Post-Good Friday Agreement era. Because the book tries to throw its arms around such a big chunk of history, some tales seem thin, the people in them only sketched in pencil. Lindsay's exhaustive research, however, yielded opinion from a wide range of players. The voices we do hear, the voices of gunmen, apologists, police, victims and their families emerge from the dark and then quickly disappear like the disembodied faces in a Becket play. A few individuals seem more fully drawn. They leave an impression.


Funeral of Jimmy Brown
Jimmy Brown is one such person. Brown assumed a leadership role in the IPLO, a group formed by disaffected members of the INLA. With Brown's approval, the IPLO engaged in the drugs trade to fund a quasi left-wing revolutionary movement. Brown would not survive, nor would the IPLO. In the dangerous seas of West Belfast, they were small fish. Dubbed pushers by the Provisionals, the IPLO was all but doomed. Brown died as the result of an internal feud while the IPLO was wiped out in less than 48 hours, its ranks blasted into oblivion during two nights of coordinated attacks by PIRA in 1992.

Much of Lindsay's book describes the Byzantine world of loyalist paramilitaries. Not surprisingly, he shows us a UVF and UDA awash in drugs, its members dealing and using with almost shameless zeal. Inevitably, there is the story of Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair and his establishment as a drugs-funded UDA boss based in the Lower Shankill. When Adair and his remaining supporters are forced to flee Northern Ireland, we read a policeman's wry comment that, "It's like the end of The Godfather, but in reverse - it's the victory of the five other Mafia families over the Corleones."

The intriguing story of Raymond McCord's battle with loyalist paramilitaries also receives considerable attention. McCord, his son murdered by the UVF in 1997, wrote Justice for Raymond, a personal account from which Lindsay quotes liberally. "The fact was that I was telling the truth and the UVF couldn't handle that," McCord writes, "Their leadership may have been opposed to drugs at one time, but people put in charge of certain areas were knee deep in drug dealing and they did nothing to stop them." Even prior to his son's murder, McCord was the target of threats and sought help from Nancy Gracey and her fledgling organisation Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT). The author describes the brave efforts of FAIT. He also documents how the organisation was compromised by unscrupulous figures, accusations of state sponsorship, and shoddy accounting.     

While Lindsay maintains a distant, objective tone in most of his study, at times his editorial voice does appear. In the book's early parts, the personal is almost completely sacrificed to the greater goal of providing a comprehensive look at the history of drugs and drug-related violence in Northern Ireland. When Lindsay does enter the fray, he is a father, a father in Derry protecting his young daughters. "In March 2000 I witnessed something that looked very much like a punishment beating," Lindsay writes. 


Target of a punishment shooting
Bending to local custom, he opted to lodge a complaint not with the RUC but at his nearest Sinn Féin office. He left a tad frightened, unsatisfied. "I was, and still am, uncertain whether I did the right thing in not ignoring the incident. Perversely perhaps, I think that I was angrier that my children had witnessed the incident than I was that it had taken place at all."

Such is the effect of several decades of violence. Lindsay recognizes a jostled moral compass, not only his but Northern Ireland's as a whole. In dealing with drugs and so-called anti-social behaviour, the vigilantes effectively established a whole new sliding scales of justice. Whole new levels of violence became acceptable, common, invisible. 

 As Lindsay notes:

A suspected drug dealer, car thief or burglar who has been shot has not been shot because he is suspected of drug dealing, car theft or burglary. He has been shot because the person who shot him believes that it is acceptable to fire a bullet into the body of an unarmed human being.


  • John Lindsay, 2012, No Dope Here? Anti-drugs Vigilantism in Northern Ireland. Derry: Yes Publications. ISBN 1873832524

         

23 comments:

  1. I read this book last year and John Lindsay is at least honest when he writes “I should declare my prejudices. I came to this topic as someone who is opposed to all forms of corporal punishment and violence other than in immediate self-defence . I was also of the view that drug taking and it’s corollary, drug supply, are in essence matters of personal choice”. This, for me, set the scene for the book.

    Drug taking and it’s corollary, drug supply are not purely matters of personal choice. The decisions around those things may be made up by the choices of individuals but it affects us all. Whether that is through addiction or physical or psychological illness, through to resources spent on health care or through victims of drug related crime. I had my own problems and saw at first hand others who had problems with drugs. Of course alcohol and tobacco are drugs and they all bring their own pressures and downsides but I would be against arguing for a social acceptance of the illegal variety at all or the abuse of alcohol or tobacco. Maybe the tide is turning against the latter.

    I would have less of a problem with cannabis and would like to see all drugs legalised in a way that reduces use, addiction and the accompanying social problems.

    The problem with the status quo is that illegal drugs are widely available yet not controlled, monitored or checked. This makes them riskier and more dangerous.

    If all drugs were legal yet controlled, if managed properly, it would reduce use, reduce risk and make the drugs safer. Now you can buy heroin for example but you probably would not know how pure or strong it was or if it has a more poisonous substance within. If it was available in a clinical setting on prescription the harmful effects on individuals and the rest of society would drop significantly.

    In Switzerland clean Heroin was available to addicts but in a clinical environment: a white, sterilized room. As people are more likely to take Heroin if it is clean, people stopped using the street version and because people preferred not to take it in a hospital environment people didn't take it at all so Heroin use plummeted.

    The other problem with the status quo is that gangs primarily control the supply especially with the harder drugs. These gangs might only sell cannabis but the other drugs are so profitable many of them go on to sell the others too. The large scale movers are not in to it to pay for their own personal supply, they are in it for profit and as they are not philanthropists they will try to increase their profits. To protect their profits they will arm themselves and this is where it becomes essentially a problem for everyone. Drug related burglaries, robberies and violence by the users aside you’ll be paying for it in other ways as well.

    I am against violence too. As John says in the book it only does more harm than it prevents. I would be in favour of a more proactive approach against the dealers and suppliers such as was seen by the Garda in O’Connell Street recently.

    As for paramilitaries selling drugs Republicans have by and large resisted the temptation to go into the drugs business. I mean you only delegitimise the struggle by linking it to drugs. People died to show they weren't criminals but if your organisation is funded by drugs you have criminalised yourself and you have no moral or ethical basis on which to fight. And everyone knows that if a movement becomes an empire it will fall just like any other empire.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simon

    Thank you for your insights. In your post you describe the vicious cycles of the drugs trade in a nutshell, especially its American incarnation. Given the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the sale of drugs and their policing was obviously going to take on a unique dimension, one peculiar to a place with a roiling civil war. West Belfast is not South Central, even though a gun looks like a gun. I do think, however, that Lindsay's book is primarily about the cruelty of punishment beatings and shootings, which are extra-legal and a part of an unofficial system of justice which has no transparency. There's no question that the RUC was often a vicious, corrupt and bigoted arm of the state, but that fact hardly justified the level of barbarity involved in firing bullets at close range into the body parts of unarmed people, some of them teenagers. Yes, Lindsay probably supports a more liberal approach to drugs and limited legalisation, but I think his book is primarily intended to shed a light on a particularly ugly practice of the paramilitaries. Simon, your final paragraph highlights an essential difference between republicanism and loyalism, with the cognitive dissonance that the former tried to avoid. I would like to hear more about the Garda efforts on O'Connell Street. Could you please describe this policing or pass on links to recent articles. Thank you Simon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Interesting review I wouldn't bother reading the book now. I don't know about NI being the most dissected studied spot on the planet! Is it? Has that been proved statistically or is that a subjective statement? Some thoughts which are not mind-blowingly unique as no input on this matter is. Having worked years in addiction field however there is I believe cred in what I utter. Experientially there is cred to my insights as I used illicit from 14 yrs of age to 28. I just got too exhausted to keep using It was hard work all round being a junkie & getting clean was a relief Nothing worse than a reformed addict is there O yeah there is A born again Christian. I am that too hahaha I digress...

    The hysteria re kneecapping for those bringing drugs into community is unwarranted. I think that sort of punishment is low grade action when one considers the death and destruction (with ongoing generational impact) addiction brings. The issue is always the integrity of the vigilantes. Half the time I think this sort of payback is thinly disguised drug turf payback - there are however valid cases. This sort of approach is not and never will be unique to NI.

    Harm minimisation and harm reduction take the drama out of addiction relegating the usage of illicit in destructive mode, to its rightful place. A sad shitful place to find yourself in. The tedium of scoring, risking blood borne viruses risktaking behaviour etc etc. If injecting centre was set up in Belfast or Derry I am sure an uproar would ensue because they are viewed by many as supporting usage.

    Educating society in general way is the answer As for para's dealing and so on No comment. All this sort of shit has been happening for decades Btw the States which has the highest rate of incarceration of nominal users of cannabis also has a core of immates with mental health issues underpinning their entrenched addiction... NB Surely anyone can see that legalisation of illicit would negate drug trade but also bring an end to big business. The big business is prisons and pharmaceuticals...

    More to the eye than Joe Doe dead from overdose. There is recreational usage of drugs that is of no detriment to society and there is rampant self destructive usage. It is the second form of usage which points to mental health issues, societal issues underpinning the burgeoning usage of illicit more than anything else.

    NI has generations still impacted psychologically from the troubles. Those wounds of historical trauma do not readily heal with cessation of war. Suicide stats of youth are outrageous in NI but the services are not adequate. And whilst I am it - there is nothing more ghastly than grog swilling individuals berating the addicts. I always laugh me guts out at the irony. Thick as. No insights to their own addictions. And with a wave of me legal cigarette and a suck on me legal cuppa coffee I am over and out.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope you can access this Michael. The RTE website has a plethora of news articles on drugs seizures including

    the story I mentioned about O'Connell Street

    There was also a recent RTE radio show on the subject

    but it may not be listenable depending on where you are.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Simon

    Thanks so much, was able to access the links. While driving through Dublin with my cousin a few weeks ago, we had to slow down to let two sad heroin zombies navigate a crossing near Merrion Square. There were more of the same on the other side of the river. When asked if heroin addiction was on the wane, if the worst was over for Dublin, my cousin said, "Oh no, it's just as bad now, maybe worse." The Swiss example you describe is encouraging, as is the Portuguese experiment which seems to be working quite well. It will be very interesting to see how the PSNI approaches drugs in the next decade and if they receive more assistance from communities that have traditionally been antagonistic to the police. Will the "peace" alter the constabulary's surveillance of drugs activity? Hard to say.

    ReplyDelete
  6. There is no better way to tame a people than to drug them. If you normalise more drug taking you can almost guarantee the proles will never object or challenge the state.
    As a drinker and former smoker i without irony, defiantly reject the introduction of more drugs to our society. Whether we like it or not the troubles did curtail the use of drugs on our streets;since the ceasefires the use has blossomed. There is no better barometer than to look at the cities of the U.S or UK were the normalisation of drug taking has impacted those societies. The violence produced in these regions is not caused by smoking cigs or indeed drink in my opinion even though the perpetrators probably smoke and drink. Alcohol can make a person do stupid things but drugs take a person to another level were they act on impulse.
    I have spoken to nurses who tell me our hospitals continue to admit young people with mental conditions and initially they say it was alcohol that messed their head but eventually they admit it was drugs and alarmingly the wacky baccy was a big factor. I have friends who take dope and they privately admit that their head is wrecked with paranoia etc because of it.
    The last ten years or so it seems that the suicide rate in the north has risen rapidly and i just wonder if there is any correlation with that and the advent of the ceasefire?
    As for the statistics on the effects of alcohol/smoking has on the NHS? Well unless a patient admits he has taken drugs, a doctor even though he suspects the patient is lying can only put down the statistics the patient tells him ie patient says he only induced alcohol and no drugs. Put it bluntly, patients lie when they are administered to hospital if they have consumed drugs and blame it on the drink.
    I would be suspicious of the main proponents of legalisation. These people could have an ulterior motive ie money. After all these champions of the people took loansharking away from the criminal by legalising it eg wonga,payday loans etc. I wouldnt be surprised these chancers will be looking to legalise paedophilia in the future too if there is any profit in it. They could even use the same arguments that they use for drugs i.e theres no harm in it,everyone is doing it,you can never get rid of it etc etc.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Michael,

    You may find this article in today's Irish Examiner of interest.

    The Continuity IRA has threatened to execute “drug dealers and criminals” if they try to harm members of its organisation.

    An emailed statement to the media purporting to be from CIRA, and which was signed off with a code word, referenced a newspaper article published last weekend in which a group calling itself the “United Criminal Alliance” threatened “Limerick republicans”.


    This link is part 1 of a 3 part documentary on how drugs came into Ireland.

    Here is a study of why people were knee capped during the troubles by John Conroy from 1980.

    "This is not a normal society. You have to instill fear in those sort of people, but it never works if it occurs over a long period of time. People get used to being threatened. I know someone who has been kneecapped three times and is still doing the same things he was kneecapped for. "

    ReplyDelete
  8. Michael- "It will be very interesting to see how the PSNI approaches drugs in the next decade and if they receive more assistance from communities that have traditionally been antagonistic to the police. Will the "peace" alter the constabulary's surveillance of drugs activity? Hard to say."

    There is a story told in "Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol. 11, No.2 (Summer 1999). pp. 1-38 PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON" about how the PIRA rang the RUC to tell them about a cannabis shipment they intercepted. "On 31 March 1996, the PIRA intercepted a drug cache destined for south Co. Down, and alerted the RUC to the whereabouts of the hijacked shipment that contained an estimated £20,000 worth of cannabis."

    On the point about future solutions for the drug problem- there are many countries out there where best practice can be learnt, tweaked and applied. We are a smaller planet now so although transport globally now allows for an easier access to drugs the global communications system has evolved too and we can communicate and discover practices from more able, resourceful states that are having success battling drugs.

    However, we are inherently conservative here and that will harm our own chances of success. Prison isn't a solution, look at the United States. Too ineffective, expensive and therefore inefficacious. But we will follow that example, like the blind leading the blind, rather than that set by Portugal or Switzerland. The countries with true vision.

    ReplyDelete

  9. The last ten years or so it seems that the suicide rate in the north has risen rapidly and i just wonder if there is any correlation with that and the advent of the ceasefire?

    Read this Wolfie it may answer some of your questions...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Simon, Frankie, Mary and Wolfe Tone

    Thank you for contributing to the discussion. Simon, I had never read or heard about that example of the Provos tipping off the RUC. Unusual, but then again during that whole period avowed enemies were becoming bed fellows in the wind down. The Irish approach to the drugs problem does seem to take its cue from the US with its zeal for incarceration and misguided belief that intercepting a percentage, a small percentage of supply, makes an impact on demand and substance abuse. The so-called "War on Drugs," as you suggest, has been a complete failure and has actually only succeeded in increasing the profits of the drug barons and those who build jails. Some would say that the current approach is an American method of warehousing the poor and the undesirable, of removing excess population no longer needed in a moribund urban manufacturing sector.

    Wolfe Tone, from a government policy perspective, I think advocates of legalisation have come to the conclusion that the war on supply is futile and that curbing demand and treating addiction is the more viable option. There are no easy answers to these problems, of course, and if there were, they would not persist. The suicide statistics in Northern Ireland since the GFA are truly disturbing. The article that Frankie provided a link to includes the following:

    "Research by Professor Mike Tomlinson at Queen’s University Belfast published in 2012 concluded that the conflict in Northern Ireland had a profound effect on suicide rates. He said that the steep increase in recent years may be accounted for by those who grew up in the 1970s during the worst years of the violence.

    He examined 40 years of death registration data and found that the highest suicide rate was for men aged 35-44.

    New research carried out by a team at the University of Ulster confirms that people in Northern Ireland who experienced a conflict-related traumatic event are even more likely than those who experienced other types of trauma to have suicidal thoughts and plans.

    The research team from the Bamford Centre for Mental Health and Well-Being at the University of Ulster has examined the link between conflict-related events and suicide attempts in Northern Ireland.

    Their analysis of data from over 4,000 people - collected in 2008 for a World Mental Health Survey initiative - backs the suggestion that traumatic events associated with the Northern Ireland conflict are associated with suicidal thoughts and plans."

    In other words, though drugs may well have contributed to many of the suicides since 1998, Troubles related trauma, a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, has undoubtedly been a significant culprit. The pain lingers.

    Thank you Frankie for all your links. I really appreciate everyone's comments and do hope that you'll find a copy of John Lindsay's book. All the best from us here in Louisville, Kentucky.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks for that link frankie. Those stats have even shocked me. We as a nation have certainly not 'cherished all the children of the nation equally'. Unfortunately the deaths from drugs are accepted as some sort of providence in our society.
    I personnally know a few young people who took their own lives, and although it isnt proven, i do believe the wacky baccy played a part in their state of mind. These people were young and had the potential to be good republicans. I view their deaths to be a loss to republicanism as a whole.
    As i said in my previous post,there is no better way to tame a people than to drug them. Indeed its a great way to destroy a people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The potential to be good republicans" like the drug dealers of the INLA and IPLO?

      Delete
  12. Wolfe Tone

    Malcolm X came to the same conclusion. I consider him a defiant carrier of light, the manhood of his people. To Malcolm's great credit, he was someone not averse to reflection and reevaluation. He too saw drugs as a detriment to self-actualization, progress, and real change.

    Happy Easter

    ReplyDelete
  13. Michael mahoney

    The black community in the U.S are an example of how drugs can destroy the genuine aims of a people. They fight with one and other now over the spoils of drugs rather than fight the ruling bigots that lord over them. And just like other ethnic peoples in other lands that are under imperialism their ability to effect change will reduce rapidly once drugs are embedded. Its the perfect tool for the ruling classes to maintain superiority. Unfortunately people like Malcolm X will be taken out one way or another as they truly are a threat to the status quo.
    Just to further normalise drugs in our society up pops the legal high shops. If i decided to sell high powered explosives to everyone but packaged it in a way as to claim it was fishfood etc, how long do you think i would last before the state closed me down? Do you think the state would claim they couldnt do anything because although we know its explosives we dont know what type of explosive it is! The state wants all the proles to take drugs and when they become dependent it will be the state that they will depend on.
    I would say to all drug takers,by all means take drugs if you want but dont foist it on our childrens children just so you can perhaps convince yourself you arent weak.
    As a former smoker,drinker etc i believe its a duty to strengthen not weaken future generations.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Michael- I read Malcolm X's biography as told to Alex Haley. I was very impressed by what I read. Although a leader he was an able and constant learner as well. I believe that biographies generally can be useful teachers in life. You can read and learn a life lesson rather than having to live it yourself.

    Malcolm X was a dealer in cocaine in his youth. I suppose someone who has radically changed deserves a second chance but change of this magnitude and value is so rare as to nearly make the maxim on second chances redundant. Not that everyone doesn't deserve chances, I meant that the chances of a rewarding return on a such a scale is rare. Maybe that is one reason why he is so inspirational.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The new French Connection

    After months of surveillance, investigators made their move last week, searching a police station and finding €800 (£644), a kilo of cannabis and a few dozen watches hidden behind a false ceiling.
    A total of 30 policemen have now been suspended, representing around half of the elite anti-crime squad - known as the BAC (Brigade anti-criminalite) Nord - that operated in Marseille's drug and crime infested northern district.


    Three police officers were today jailed for selling drugs


    Best of all is HSBC....

    So cops sell drugs, banks can get fat on drugs and If I was caught having a toke I'd be hauled in front of Judge and criminalized..

    ReplyDelete
  16. The great majority of illicitly used prescription opioids are not obtained from drug dealers. Family and friends are now the greatest source of illicit prescription opioids, and the majority of these opioids are obtained from one physician--not from "doctor shopping". opioid addiction symptoms

    ReplyDelete
  17. I gotta favorite this website it seems very helpful . Professional Drivers

    ReplyDelete
  18. This impact cycle is alluded to as a resistance. Long haul drug misuse makes changes happen to different frameworks parts inside the mind. cbd usa

    ReplyDelete
  19. Just about everyone who abuses alcohol or drugs has heard about it from their family or friends who've tried to get them to drink less, quit drinking or drugs altogether, or get help in an alcohol rehab or drug addiction treatment center. Often, however, the advice, suggestions, pleas and demands fall on deaf ears. This is very frustrating for concerned parents and spouses who know the abuser is seriously in need of an alcohol or drug addiction treatment center. drug addiction treatment

    ReplyDelete
  20. TPQ...LEGENDS link isn't about Government Housing Bank (GHB) is a link to the drug GHB (steroid used in date rape) and how to buy it..............

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Frankie - we will delete it. That's what we get for shunning links!

      Delete
  21. When I opened the link, I had no choice but to flag it.....

    ReplyDelete