Free Republic

I was having lunch last week with a senior member of the Garda Siochana or Irish police in Dublin. He is a man with 32 years of service fighting crime in the Irish capital. Throughout his career he has witnessed three major drug waves in the Irish Republic - the first heroin epidemic of 1980; the explosion of ecstasy and cocaine use in the mid 1990s and now the introduction of crack cocaine at the start of the 21st century. He is a superintendent with some major successes under his belt including the operation against John Gilligan, the drugs baron...