Heroin use on my Doorstep

the-macho-man

Myself and my girlfriend moved into an apartment on Dame St. We knew it would be noisy and might be woken up by drunk ppl at night but we were ok with that. However last night (our first night in the apartment) we looked out the window only to see a guy crouched on the ground injecting himself with I have to guess is heroin literally 4 ft from the front door of the building.

We spoke to a few Gardai a little while later when he was gone and they were saying theres a few drug clinics around the area.

Can anyone please let me know if this is common on Dame st? Or even what's the right thing to do if you see that happening?

Many thanks,
A worried Dublin noob.

harry Bailey esq

the-macho-man wrote: »

Myself and my girlfriend moved into an apartment on Dame St. We knew it would be noisy and might be woken up by drunk ppl at night but we were ok with that. However last night (our first night in the apartment) we looked out the window only to see a guy crouched on the ground injecting himself with I have to guess is heroin literally 4 ft from the front door of the building.

We spoke to a few Gardai a little while later when he was gone and they were saying theres a few drug clinics around the area.

Can anyone please let me know if this is common on Dame st? Or even what's the right thing to do if you see that happening?

Many thanks,
A worried Dublin noob.

Its commonplace on most of the busy streets in town sadly, not a lot you can do about it im afraid. Police can't really do much unless they catch them in possession of drugs.There are always plenty of addicts hanging around Dame St./Temple bar/Westmoreland St.There are a couple of clinics nearby and focus Ireland have a drop in day centre in the area.The addicts themselves, whilst not pretty to see,are generally harmless,you'll soon be like any other dub and just ignore them.If you walk around Dublin as a 'noob' on any given day, you'll see many strange things but you'll soon get used to it all,maybe even draw some entertainment value from the madness of it all.Some of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life have involved junkies in the city centre.

leinsterdude

everyone knows this is happening, did you not research the area, unlikely never to change, what a terrible location to live in, if you went a mile further out it would be much better.

spongebob89

This is happening but shouldn't be happening! Im always amazed at how our city centre is plagued with junkies unlike any other major cities.. Anyway my advice would be to stick it out and if it continues get back onto daft. Ie and move! Do research on the next area, ask for advice on this.

SpaceTime

I lived in Northern Spain and had similar experiences. Same or worse in Brussels too. I get harassed by junkies there especially near Gare de Midi (south station) which is the major transit hub for rail connections in and out of that city.

Drugs need to be dealt with in Dublin and it is bad but it's far from unique unfortunately.

The worrying bit in Dublin is lack of policing resources and poor quality / inadequate treatment schemes to get people off drugs. It's got to be a joined up thinking issue that tackles the high level dealers hard while treating the junkies as patients / victims of it.

The visible junkies are a symptom of powerful gangs and social deprivation it's as simple as that really.

I'm also probably not going to be popular for saying this but Ireland has a major issue with alcohol and drug abuse that's largely cultural. The UK has it to a major degree too. It's very visible in the way we drink to be off our faces drunk. It's an issue right across Northern European countries actually.

Ultimately it's about changing attitudes to drugs and alcohol and I see no evidence of that happening. You need to move towards moderate consumption.

English speaking and Nordic countries have a history of binge drinking followed by crack downs of prohibition and extreme regulation. It's about striking a healthy balance and none of us have achieved that.

Pragmatism is needed - people aren't going to just stop doing these things so you've got to educate them in ways of doing them safely and without causing social hardship. The Dutch ideas are about as logical as you can get on this. They're not actually mad, liberal, pro drugs policies - they're practical ways of regulating something that isn't stoppable really. They're just forward thinking enough to be able to realise that.

harry Bailey esq

SpaceTime wrote: »

Same or worse in Brussels too. I get harassed by junkies there especially near Gare de Midi (south station) which is the major transit hub for rail connections in and out of that city.

Jesus that place is sketchy.The visible drug problem in this town is here to stay,like it or lump it.Unless of course there was some kind of walking dead style cull organised but for obvious reasons that approach is a non starter.

pablo128

A pot of water poured out the window onto them should get rid of them.

harry Bailey esq

pablo128 wrote: »

A pot of water poured out the window onto them should get rid of them.

That was actually quite common in some of the corpo flats in town and in ballymun when I was growing up.Probably still goes on.

Konata

Yes, junkies are common in that area - anywhere around the very centre of the city really. It's not pleasant to see, but there's not an awful lot that you can do about it, as other posters have pointed out. The best advice is to ignore them. They are fairly harmless if you don't bother them. They generally keep themselves to themselves and only interact with 'others' if you purposely annoy them.

I'm afraid the only other advice is to move if you're not happy with the situation. They're not going to disappear from the area anytime soon and you'll unfortunately be wasting your time if you hope otherwise. Best of luck anyway!

spongebob89

harry Bailey esq wrote: »

That was actually quite common in some of the corpo flats in town and in ballymun when I was growing up.Probably still goes on.

^^^^^:D:D

Or one of mas spuds from the balcony

SpaceTime

harry Bailey esq wrote: »

Jesus that place is sketchy.The visible drug problem in this town is here to stay,like it or lump it.Unless of course there was some kind of walking dead style cull organised but for obvious reasons that approach is a non starter.

Yup Gare de Midi is one of those places you just exit to a taxi or metro ASAP! No chilling with a coffee!!
Phone & wallet in pocket and aware - no headphones!

the-macho-man

Thanks for the comments guys. Its good to know the general feeling is that they're harmless.

However surely they need to get money from somewhere though so I would expect a reasonable amount of robberies either from people on the street or from apartments. Has anyone experienced or heard of junkies attempting to rob people on the street?

FloatingVoter

the-macho-man wrote: »

Thanks for the comments guys. Its good to know the general feeling is that they're harmless.

However surely they need to get money from somewhere though so I would expect a reasonable amount of robberies either from people on the street or from apartments. Has anyone experienced or heard of junkies attempting to rob people on the street?

When they're stoned or getting there, they are no threat to anyone. The drunks spilling out of Temple Bar are more likely to be aggressive. A high junkie is as docile as a baby.
Handbag / iPhone snatches are the most they'll attempt - no direct confrontation involved. As an above poster hinted, no walking around with head buried in your smartphone etc. This weather there are enough idiots leaving tables unattended and adorned with phones etc. to keep them in gear. And mainly they stick to begging.
Just don't present as a target for them - "no, you don't smoke" and "no, you have no lend of 50c for a hostel, bud".

Big Nasty

As mentioned already they're generally harmless / too fooked up to be of much danger to you once you give them a wide berth. I've witnessed a few funny incidents from them myself. Most recent one was a junkie girl pulling out of a Roma Gypsy begger telling him to get up off his bleedin hole and stop begging when she knows well he has a house.

Rock 1234

Political correctness, general apathy and a lack of political drive to deal with the drug problem has allowed drug use to go out of control, what are all these treatment clinic's doing it seems the are just kicking the ball down the road,

There seams to be one law for one group of people and another for the rest of us, tough love is what is needed here which will allow these poor unfortunate people to get the help the need it's there basic human right, and it's my right and all the rest of the population to be able to live and walk around our cities and towns without the fear of been robbed or attracted, Bring back Lugs Branagan. !

Just because they're harmless doesn't mean that it's acceptable. I never saw junkies shooting up heroin in public until I moved to Dublin. It's horrible and disgraceful to think that our most popular tourist areas (Dame Street, O Connell Street, etc.) are crowded with them either selling/distributing them or using them in public without much action from the cops, who are ridiculously understaffed and unprepared to deal with the rising problem.

harry Bailey esq

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Just because they're harmless doesn't mean that it's acceptable. I never saw junkies shooting up heroin in public until I moved to Dublin.

Many things are unacceptable,but some things just won't change and you just have to bite your lip sometimes.The sad truth is that drugs and drug users are just part of inner city life.This is not unique to our own capital city,anyone whose been to Lisbon,Athens,Oslo or as another poster mentioned Brussels will know what I mean.

Ash.J.Williams

i don't think it's alarmist to say that dublin city centre has an obvious and unacceptable heroin problem. I'm not sure how we rate against other euro cities, but it's definitely more visible than anywhere i've been. in fact i'd guess we have a lot less junkies than other cities, we just encourage ours to use our city centre.

TallGlass

Just tell em to **** off somewhere else and shoot up and call the Garda. They will tell them the same, I wouldn't worry about them shooting up its the mess they leave after themselves blood and needles.

harry Bailey esq

harry Bailey esq wrote: »

Many things are unacceptable,but some things just won't change and you just have to bite your lip sometimes.The sad truth is that drugs and drug users are just part of inner city life.This is not unique to our own capital city,anyone whose been to Lisbon,Athens,Oslo or as another poster mentioned Brussels will know what I mean.

And it's this defeatest acceptance attitude that has made this problem as bad as it is right now - simply accepting it rather than trying to actually do something about it. It doesn't have to be the case. We allow it to be. Dublin today resembles Times Square, before they made it tourist friendly. What's stopping us from doing the same? Apart from a Garda commissioner and higher ups who just don't bother.

P_1

All you can really do in cases like this is to make the place as uncomfortable for them to shoot up as possible in the hope that they'll move elsewhere. Not advocating breaking any laws or anything but I'm sure you're a resourceful enough chap and you'll come up with a suitable idea.

InTheTrees

Deleted User wrote: »

And it's this defeatest acceptance attitude that has made this problem as bad as it is right now - simply accepting it rather than trying to actually do something about it. It doesn't have to be the case. We allow it to be. Dublin today resembles Times Square, before they made it tourist friendly. What's stopping us from doing the same? Apart from a Garda commissioner and higher ups who just don't bother.

Exactly.

With the right political will it can be cleaned up.

:mad:

harry Bailey esq

[Deleted User] wrote: »

And it's this defeatest acceptance attitude that has made this problem as bad as it is right now - simply accepting it rather than trying to actually do something about it. It doesn't have to be the case. We allow it to be. Dublin today resembles Times Square, before they made it tourist friendly.

I'm not being defeatist,I'm being realistic. And its silly to compare Dublin to New York.What would you suggest to address the problem?Shoot them all?

John_Rambo

[Deleted User] wrote: »

And it's this defeatest acceptance attitude that has made this problem as bad as it is right now - simply accepting it rather than trying to actually do something about it.

Boneyarsebogman there's plenty of thing you can do to help. I was involved in an inner city youth group that certainly led a good few kids down a better path than the one they were headed. If you want the name of the organisation and if your willing to be Garda vetted and if you have certain skill sets PM me and I'll give you the details.

AngryHippie

Rock 1234 wrote: »

Political correctness, general apathy and a lack of political drive to deal with the drug problem has allowed drug use to go out of control, what are all these treatment clinic's doing it seems the are just kicking the ball down the road,

There seams to be one law for one group of people and another for the rest of us, tough love is what is needed here which will allow these poor unfortunate people to get the help the need it's there basic human right, and it's my right and all the rest of the population to be able to live and walk around our cities and towns without the fear of been robbed or attracted, Bring back Lugs Branagan. !

Epic fail of an attitude

Ash.J.Williams

I feel bad for them to be honest. Every time i stumble upon an injector in the carpark in work, the first word from them is "sorry"...

InTheTrees

harry Bailey esq wrote: »

And its silly to compare Dublin to New York.What would you suggest to address the problem?Shoot them all?

??

They didn't shoot them all in new York.

??

harry Bailey esq

InTheTrees wrote: »

??

They didn't shoot them all in new York.

??

Ill say it again.THIS IS NOT NEW YORK.They didn't solve the problem in New York,they just moved it.Sure you'll often see people on this forum with all the answers,a popular one is to move all the clinics out to the suburbs,problem solved eh?Wrong.Plenty of addicts get their phy in the suburbs and head straight into town to beg or whatever else they get upto.

Help!!!!

We need these guys to come back & do a piece on the drug culture in Dublin

http://entertainment.ie/wtf/Watch-Carlow-town-residents-in-a-rage-after-Russian-TV-report-depicts-it-as-a-ghost-town/237910.htm

See Enda get up off his ar$e then when it starts affecting tourism

Lux23

Dame Street is really busy all the time so I think you would be safe enough from a robbery point of view. It is a pretty scummy thing to do though and we really need safe injection rooms to get people to stop doing this out in the open.

On a happy note, I would love a flat on Dame street, an ideal location for me. Hope you settle in soon and get used to your surroundings.

Dr_Bill

Unfortunately, Dublin city centre seems quite bad in recent times with junkies around the streets.

If it is not junkies it seems some people find it perfectly accepted to urinate in public in doorways etc. its disgusting, welcome to Irish society!