They all might seem at daggers drawn, but when it comes to drugs they stand together – the cops and RAAD, mainstream Republicans, community organisations and the local press.
 
Their competitive hype has become a threat to the peace.
On May 31, armed police stormed into Trash, a rock memorabilia shop near Derry city centre with a small sideline in legal highs. The across-the-counter trade in highs has collapsed – probably everywhere – the concoctions being now freely (and legally) available on the internet.
Everything on Trash shelves is legal. So shouldn’t the PSNI be protecting the premises, not bursting in with drawn guns? If employees didn’t previously need protection, they certainly need it now. Republican Action Against Drugs will feel challenged to match the cops in their efforts to put Trash out of business.
Ray Coyle, who ran Red Star, about 100 yards from Trash, also faced an armed squad which burst into his shop in 2010 and shot him three times. He now lives away from Derry under credible threat of death.
The PSNI and RAAD outdo one another in estimates of the size of the drugs problem, so as to advertise the extent of their concern. RAAD are the main beneficiaries. Fear of drugs was the rationale for their formation four years ago.
RAAD will have been pleased as punch, too, by a story telling that the IRSP had “recovered” 500 tablets said to be worth £3,000 and passed them to a local community centre. The find was “deeply worrying,” said a spokesman for the centre. “The impression we have is that it’s an Ecstasy-type drug.
“If [it is] similar to ‘Blues’, then we are talking of something with the potential to kill. Apart from being directly responsible for… deaths in Belfast, they also caused serious mental health problems which, in a number of cases, resulted in young people taking their own lives.”
The “capture” of the tablets ensured that “the death dealers don’t have the opportunity to poison our young people.”
The fellow clearly hadn’t a clue what the tablets were, nothing to substantiate the claim that pills of this sort had caused the deaths of young people. But then, putting the frighteners on the community is the name of this game.
RAAD greeted the story as gold-dust. It hugely enhanced their case for permanently eliminating “death dealers” out to “poison our young people.”
No mainstream party or local media outlet questioned these baseless warnings of imminent disaster. This is the main reason RAAD can expect to prosper through the maiming and murder of mainly young people. And there may be another positive development for the outfit in the offing.
The point has been made here more than once that RAAD differed from “dissidents” in that it eschewed armed struggle against security forces. Now, however, as the clueless PSNI simultaneously hunts RAAD members and amplifies their message, the group has taken to targeting the PSNI in retaliation, describing actions such as the raid on Trash as “stunts” and scornfully rejecting Sinn Fein’s support for the “new police service”.
It was remarked in this column six weeks ago that, “RAAD, having developed its own momentum and its sense of entitlement to enforce its will, has begun to challenge SF’s authority… The more this attitude hardens, the greater the area of common operational ground between RAAD and the Reals.”
And so it has come to pass. What began as a crusade against drugs has become a potential challenge to the political settlement, a threat to the fragile peace. The trajectory of events leads towards uncertainty, instability and an escalating death toll.
This is a small localised example of a global phenomenon – the absolute failure and bloody stupidity of the War on Drugs.
 
I was going to make a few observations on the British media’s arse-licking of the useless Royals. But did you see that snivelling piece in the Indo by Kevin Myers? We have nothing to feel superior about.
Once upon a time, a certain foppish chutzpah was de rigueur with Myers. Now, faced with the Brit Royals, he has all the dainty decorum of the dropped bollocks of a mangy cur.
And did I miss something, or has there not been a single review of the gig outside Buckingham Palace? I shouldn’t be surprised. What a fiasco! And how embarrassing was the botoxed, face-lifted, false-haired Paul McCartney? This was the worst gig in the history of the world. The Duke of Edinburgh’s excuse for his no-show was a bladder infection. Some people will say anything to get out of a Cliff Richard concert. Personally, I was at the launch of Sean Tyrrell’s Walker Of The Snow. Now there’s class.
Mind you, there are aspects of the tomfoolery I am not entirely opposed to. For random example: it seems taken for granted by journos across the water that David Beckham is all set to be knighted.
Banish thoughts of Beckham. Concentrate on the teeth-grinding chagrin of all the snobs of one sort and another who will be forced – and don’t doubt that she will force them – henceforth to address Posh as Lady Victoria. What fun!
It all shall pass away, of course, and leave not a trace. Like the mass emotional incontinence that marked the death of Diana in a drunk-driving incident. And the drivellers will similarly deny their shameless behaviour. But I’ll remember.