heroin in waterford

dlofnep

I'm not in the drug scene, but I used to have a toke and what not a few years back. Then, pills and coke were taboo. After having a discussion with a cousin of mine, It was brought to my attention that heroin is running rampant in Waterford.. It sickens me to know someone would let such a stupid and life-ruining drug into the city. I think it's small enough to control something like that. Hash or whatever I can understand from a recreational point, but heroin is just stupid!

The garda would want to sort that crap out and come down very hard on dealers, send them away for life.

Dan133269

The Gardai in my opinion are idiots when it comes to things like these.
I lived in a housing estate, still do, but away for college and out of country at the moment. There was a dealer in this estate, young guy, money flowing out of him, flash cars, more than one car, hanging out with the dodgiest people on earth in the carpark who from one look at them you could tell they were all on drugs.

For years this guy was dealing and nothing ever happened to him, then I read in the paper that he was caught with an amount of hash and got a suspended sentence, as far as I know he never went to jail.

Sickening watcing these scum hanging out in the carpark which I could see from my sitting room window. But hey that's the Gardai, more concerned with trivial matters than serious ones. Could be worse I suppose. Totally agree with ya though dlofnep

Bards

I blame the Judiciary system myself... Imagine having spent hours,days,weeks,months even tracking and building up eveidence, going to court etc and the perp getting off with a light/non-existant sentence for them to be back out on the street again. It would be very soul destroying for anyone involved in putting cases together.

Something must be done about our Justice system where harsher penalties are handed down. It is up to minister for Justice to write into law a minimum sentence for a number of offences and not allow judges to give less than the minimum sentence

DublinWriter

Dan133269 wrote:

But hey that's the Gardai, more concerned with trivial matters than serious ones. Could be worse I suppose. Totally agree with ya though dlofnep

The Gardai are more concerned with the big-boys taking millions into the country than the bling-bling merchants down at the bottom of the drugs food-chain driving a pimped up Punto.

But even at that level, it's like the 'Hydra', you cut off one-head, and two grow back. As long as there is demand, there will be supply, and it doesn't matter how many the guards collar, there's always generals and foot-soliders ready and willing to take the place of those imprisioned.

Dan133269

DublinWriter wrote:

The Gardai are more concerned with the big-boys taking millions into the country than the bling-bling merchants down at the bottom of the drugs food-chain driving a pimped up Punto.

I don't see why they can't stop both.
Back on topic though, do you know many people yourself taking heroin dlofnep? I assume it's mainly in the working-class housing estates?

ToxicPaddy

DublinWriter wrote:

The Gardai are more concerned with the big-boys taking millions into the country than the bling-bling merchants down at the bottom of the drugs food-chain driving a pimped up Punto.

This is very true..

The amount of money and resources required to get a fairly major player in the drug market is huge, so what is usually practiced by the DS is to get a small player in, local dealer etc, threaten to thrown the book at him unless he gives info on someone further up the food chain.

Spending €100k on a operation to get a guy who sells probably €50k a year in drugs isnt really what you would call a good return on money spent, however if this guy can give info leading to a €1million drugs haul and maybe catch a big fish in the process is well worth it.

Chances are that thie guy got out on probation after supplying the cops with some info on something or other..

Look at the operation they are running in West Dublin at the moment, it was in relation to gun crime in the area but this was over drug gangs taking shots at each other, there have been something like 3000 arrests so far and in a response to this and they have uncovered 10's of millions in drugs in the last few months.

Tox

dlofnep

Was just reading in the newspaper, they busted some guy for heroin. Fair play! One down, many more to go!

Baby4

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peepsbates

no surprise realy its everywhere these days

dlofnep

Baby4 wrote:

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Yeah so was I.. Like you, I knew the abundance of coke and speed and pills and what not.. But heroin I never heard of in the city.

Musashi

Don't write off the Gardai just yet, or the boy in the Customs and Excise either!

Many years ago when I lived in a rougher area, I met a diving instructor who could certify me as a PADI diver. Got to know him, went shooting with him etc., met a few of his mates. One day he and two of his lads from the customs (he was the dive team leader for Waterford) showed me pics of every one of my neighbours, their houses, where they went, who they were with. They wanted names to faces and a list of known associates!

I knew the houses where the pics were shot, I never noticed a big unmarked van parked up taking these pics, so from the angle I would guess they had used an unused house on the estate, staying in there and shooting film out the front (boarded up ) windows. I would be paranoid enough and thought I'd have spotted this type of activity. These lads were working within 50 yards of my home and I never saw them enter or leave.

The work is ongoing everywhere, the Gardai know who is who. They just wait until the Ducks are in a row and nail everybody! From what I've seen, they get a weak link to give up every contact and deal, then jail him as well.
Make no mistake, the Gardai are not all thick feckers with nothing to do.

Roen

Baby4 wrote:

This post has been deleted.

If you look back about three years ago RTE ran a couple of reports about heroin abuse in Athlone. If it's a problem in Athlone you can be sure it's pretty much infiltrated to every large town in the country. I also knew of people in Waterford who were addicted to heroin about ten years ago. It's just a sad fact of life I'm sorry to say.
I just hope ye don't come across the teenage hookers. That's an eye opener!

cwat69

teenage hookers in waterford?your surely having us on?

Roen

Nope, and this is about 11 or so years ago as well. I don't imagine that things have changed for the better either.

merlante

Roen wrote:

Nope, and this is about 11 or so years ago as well. I don't imagine that things have changed for the better either.

Why, do they not grow up like normal kids, no?

cwat69

jesus and there was me thinking i knew it all,never heard of that before

Roen

merlante wrote:

Why, do they not grow up like normal kids, no?

Enough of your ould smart alec talk

I'm more surprised at people here being surprised at heroin being available in Waterford than anything else.
Just because we lag behind in infrastructural funding and healthcare doesn't mean we lag behind in social ills.

The full gamut of human nastiness is alive and well in Ireland's oldest city. Mercifully enough they're on a smaller scale than most other cities I travelled through or lived in but they are here!

TheNog

the first two posters seem to know little about the judicial system in our country. THe Gardai do not imprison people for life, that's for the judges to do. Ever wondered why Gardai go to court????

Musashi

that sort of surveillance goes on all over the country. While most of it is done by specialist groups such customs,national surveillance team and the eru, the actual ground work and intelligence comes from uniformed gardai. U wouldn't believe the amount of intelligence gathered by uniformed gardai on habitual lawbreakers. Some consists of 'saw such and such walking down street at such time and wearing such clothes' or ' observed such and such with another person in car reg at location'. it is all very detailed especially for the serious criminals.

Dan133269

TheNog wrote:

the first two posters seem to know little about the judicial system in our country. THe Gardai do not imprison people for life, that's for the judges to do. Ever wondered why Gardai go to court????

Excuse me theNog but I am a 3rd year law student and I can tell you that I do know a little bit about the judiciary and and the Irish legal system.
Where did I give the impression that I didn't?

TheNog

Dan133269 wrote:

Excuse me theNog but I am a 3rd year law student and I can tell you that I do know a little bit about the judiciary and and the Irish legal system.
Where did I give the impression that I didn't?

I got that impression from your first post.

First off u called the gardai idiots and then went on to say that the guy got a suspended sentence. U made it look like it was all the guards fault. WHat about the judge or the DPP inlvoved in the case. then in the last sentence u say guards couldn't be bothered going after this guy. How do u know they aren't doing anything about him? He could small fry compared to the bigger fish out there.

U say that this person was dealing from his house. What did u do to help the guards catch this person? Did u take note for people entering/leaving the house, maybe write down cars reg numbers parked outside for short periods of time, maybe u got in touch with the community garda for your area to explain the situation. All of this is classed as intelligence that can be built up for the Gardai to use. As you will know that the Gardai will require a search warrant to raid the house. In order to gain a search warrrant the guards will have built up a good amount of intellignece (from reliable sources such as residents and gardai ) to convince a judge a search was warranted!!!

Lastly u are not expected to sit hours on end watching the house, just be observant. nothing more.

Bards

sorry Dan133269, But I got the same impression as TheNog...please see me earlier post directly after yours.

Dan133269

Yes I agree with what you said Bards.

TheNog, what I "made it look like" was not what I meant, if I don't say something explicitly don't assume that's what I mean.
Do you honestly think that I wasn't aware that criminal matters are brought against criminals by the dpp representing the people?

Anyway, what I meant was I have a dislike of Gardai in certain situations and I was just venting that dislike. "Nothing more".

So what do you two guys do for a living? anything connected with law? I'm not saying that in a smart way, I'm just wondering

Bards

I have no affiliation to Law enforcement past, present, or otherwise. Just a citizen who wishes that the criminal justice system should be re-named to Victim justice system and act accordingly

TheNog

surprise!!!!!! i am a student garda...........dont hate me (no sarcasm)

my question is 'what situations is it that u dont like the guards'?

dlofnep

I'm not a law student. It's not my job to be law student. What do I know about the law? I know it's illegal to deal heroin. That's the extent of it.

I'm just in awe with the fact that heroin has become so widely available in waterford. It's a terrible drug.

my question is 'what situations is it that u dont like the guards'?

Under normal circumstances, gardai are just fine. Anytime a garda abuses his power is a situation I wouldn't be to keen on them - I've seen it happen alot of people. In saying that, haven't been in any trouble with them, so not to worried about it.

Dan133269

@ theNog, believe it or not I was considering going to try and join the guards as a career choice, still not completely ruled out as proportion of law graduates go on to become guards. Anyway enough about law, I must come across as terribly contradictory altogether.

I don't dislike the guards in general, it's just anecdotes that you come across when you feel let down by the actions of the guards and other times they seem to come down too harshly on unimportant things. Like dflonep said when they abuse their power.

Haven't had much dealings with the Gardai at all though.

TheNog

I have never seen a garda abuse his/her power but i'd be pretty stupid to believe that it doesn't happen. It happens in all jobs across all industries. There are corrupt guards as well as there are corrupt banking, insurance people and such. The corrupt guards have been getting away with it for too long but hopefully the new ombudsman on the way will stamp out most of that. When the ombudsman does come in,i'm the afraid the reputation of the guards will be tarnished some more in order to root out the bad apples but given time i hope the respect due to the gardai will be restored to some degree.
what i cannot understand and what frustrates me is why people paint all guards with the same brush - they are all bad. The corrupt ones are a minority. The grouchy ones consist of alot more guards than the corrupt ones. People don't seem to realise the amount of horrible things the gardai witness such as sudden deaths of the grossed kind, abuse from people and criminals and not forgetting a government who doesn't really care about properly resourcing the guards. The ambulance and fire crews see the horrible deaths that guards do but they don't have to deal with the criminals or drug addicts like we do.

Just to give u an idea of what i've seen and heard about a garda's job.

Example 1
A friend of mine, who is a student as well, was in the patrol car when they were called to a suicide. When they got there the man was hanging from the rafters of the house. They at first thought he was dead but when they took him down they found a weak pulse. The people in the house were foreign and didn't think of calling an ambulance. My friend gave that man CPR (chest compressions and mouth to mouth) until the ambulance arrived. He did this even though the man had pi**ed, sh*t and puked on himself. My friend didn't have a mouth guard to protect himself from any diseases that man may have had. He just couldn't stand there watching a person die. That man was taken to hospital and later died.

Example 2
THis is one I saw myself. A man was extremely drunk had been walking around town without shoes on (he was carrying his shoes). He stepped on broken glass (we believe) and he refused to go to hospital. We realised that the blood coming from his foot was pinkish red and frothy which means he had severed an artery. There was an immediate threat of this man bleeding to death. We tried reasoning with him and told him about bleeding to death. He totally ignored that and was ranting on about how we were pigs and scum of the earth. We knew we had to restrain this guy in order for the ambulance crew to save him. He reacted by flicking his blood at us and shouting that he had AIDS. WHat were we to do? Despite the danger we put ourselves at risk to save this man which we did but not after a good half pint of blood was thrown at us. Our uniforms have had to be destroyed as bio-hazard waste.

Example 3
My dad was a guard. He was called to a traffic accident about 20yrs ago. A motorcyclist had driven head first into a large wall. My dad spent half an hour trying to scrap that man's skull and brains off the wall with a dustpan and brush.

Maybe this is the reason some guards are grouchy bas***ds. I'm sure that I will see something horrible in my next 30 yrs service but I will still have to come home, hug my kids and pretend nothing ever happened when i'm with them.

Dan133269

Those stories are pretty horrific, I don't know if I would be able to act in a situation like that.
There are plenty of times where Gardai deserve a lot of recognition for the work they do.
Like you're saying about other professions there's always corrupt people, it's only natural when you have a large group of people under the same heading for a few of them to end up corrupt or dishonest because guards are of course people and people are naturally corrupt and dishonest, a lot anyway.

I'm friends with a daughter of a very high ranking Garda, not giving any details because people will know who it is, I only met him once but from my own impression and what I've heard, he seems a very genuine, honest and very hard working person. I'm also friends with 2 other guards none of which I'd see often.

I definitely think the Garda ombudsman is a right step. I think we've strayed off topic.

TheNog

Horrific stories they are, off the topic - very true.

I hope you haven't been turned off by what I posted. In the 6wks I'm working the good outways the bad. My dad said the same thing. He was in the guards for 30yrs and saw lots of horrible incidents but as he says "it is the best job in the world and I'd do it all over again if i could".

dlofnep

TheNog, I've no doubt that the garda do some wonderful things. Those stories are proof of that. And we need them in society to keep check of things, without them, our society would be an anarchist one which simply wouldn't work in real life. These men and women deserve are praise, for sure.

There are just some garda who ruin all these men and women's hard work and reputation by abusing their power and really oppressing specific members of the community.

TheNog

dlofnep wrote:

There are just some garda who ruin all these men and women's hard work and reputation by abusing their power and really oppressing specific members of the community.

i am 100% in agreement with you. never have so few tarnished the name of so many