{"id":605156,"date":"2026-07-26T15:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T15:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/605156\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T15:06:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T15:06:20","slug":"cocaine-regrettably-normalised-among-professional-classes-drew-harris-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/605156\/","title":{"rendered":"Cocaine \u2018regrettably normalised\u2019 among professional classes, Drew Harris says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Middle-aged, middle-class drug use has left the State\u2019s poorest areas struggling with the violence the illegal trade causes, former Garda<\/a> commissioner Drew Harris<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

Prosperity is fuelling demand, especially \u201cthe attraction\u201d to cocaine, which is seen by middle-class users \u201cas a way of avoiding weight gain, and an alternative to buying four or five rounds of drink,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cocaine has been \u201cnormalised and regrettably normalised\u201d among the professional classes, said Harris, who led the Garda between 2018 and his retirement last September.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe societal damage may not happen in Dublin 4, but it\u2019s happening in Dublin 15,\u201d Harris told the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal. <\/p>\n

Younger people are today less likely to be using illegal drugs, he said, while people in their 30s, 40s or 50s are \u201cdriving a lot of the demand\u201d, but are \u201cable to skip off into the sunset pretty unperturbed\u201d by the consequences.<\/p>\n

Public debate should centre on the damage caused by middle-class drugs use to working class districts who are \u201cthe ones being ravaged by the gangs, with young men, young women being coerced or driven into this\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrugs intimidation is happening to working-class families. That\u2019s my experience. Like all crime, it hits somebody hard, but it\u2019s not fair in where it lands.\u201d <\/p>\n

Despite victories over the Kinahan organised crime gang<\/a> and other groups, Harris said he was \u201cslightly more pessimistic\u201d than others about the ability of the Garda to win the battle. <\/p>\n

Forty years ago when he joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Harris said it had been \u201ca big deal to get somebody with cannabis\u201d, before police were quickly \u201cchasing the kilo of cocaine\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Garda commissioner Drew Harris speaking at the final day of the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal <\/p>\n

Paying tribute to the late assistant Garda commissioner John O\u2019Driscoll<\/a> and Irish diplomats in Dubai and in the United States, he said they had built relations with authorities in both places.<\/p>\n

Back then, there had been \u201ca lot of talk\u201d about Irish gangs such as the Kinahans being \u201cuntouchable\u201d in the United Arab Emirates, and that extraditing any of them from Dubai \u201cwould be slow\u201d.<\/p>\n

Recalling a visit to police in Bogot\u00e1 in Colombia, he said \u201cone of the sad things\u201d he noticed in police headquarters was the number of local officers wearing prosthetic limbs. Many had stepped on anti-personnel mines during raids on cartels exporting hundreds of millions worth of cocaine each week to feed the habits of users in the US and Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust think of the hypocrisy of users here who give no thought to the human cost, the injury and death, the ecological impact, the human trafficking, the complete ruination of a country or attempt of a ruination of a country,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Middle-aged, middle-class cocaine use: \u2018Even if he stopped today, I don\u2019t know would we ever get him back\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Training now takes place annually between the Garda and police in Colombia because it is \u201cvery important\u201d in building bilateral relationships \u201cnot just to be seeking, but to be offering help as well\u201d.<\/p>\n

Doubtful about the legalisation of currently illegal drugs, Harris said that both cocaine and heroin were legal substances to buy a century ago before the US and Europe \u201cstarted to see the damage\u201d both were causing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Middle-aged, middle-class drug use has left the State\u2019s poorest areas struggling with the violence the illegal trade causes,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,9,10,104664,18,13,14,6,19,17,55901,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-605156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-drew-harris","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kinahan-cartel","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116986904479125478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}