It's not just Dublin: farmers and gardaí warn of rising drug intimidation in rural areas

DRUG-RELATED INTIMIDATION IS becoming a prevalent issue across Ireland, and it’s creeping into rural areas behind a surge in cocaine consumption nationally.

A national report published earlier this year said cocaine was linked with nearly 60% of drug-related intimidation cases recorded in Ireland last year. Drug debt was the leading factor in intimidation cases, with two-thirds of people reporting debts.

Teresa Roche, chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association’s Farm Family and Social Affairs Committee, told The Journal that there is a pattern in how drug debts are pursued. 

“Drug dealers are intimidating farm families across rural Ireland,” Roche said. “They’re pinpointing a young, vulnerable person either in school or even in a sports club or whatever, and what they’re doing is they’re following them home from school – this is what we’re hearing – or they’re following them back from training.

“And these dealers are intimidating the farm families. They are turning up on their farms, knowing that they have assets such as land or tractors or they’re driving a nice car to school.”

She said that often the drug debt is very small in comparison to the intimidation, and what is asked for to settle the debt.

“Unfortunately, we do know there’ve been a lot of suicides and mental health crises associated, and families are taking this burden on themselves and trying to deal with these illegal drug dealers.”

She noted that the farming sector is incredibly vulnerable to substance abuse due to physical work coupled with rural isolation.

“We are more predisposed in relation to isolation and loneliness [when it comes] to workload,” she said.

“There are more demands in agriculture now than ever in relation to physicality, working alone, and I would say financial pressures. We’ve had a really difficult summer in relation to the crop prices, in relation to the fodder crisis, and that weather impact has had a major effect on farmers’ wellbeing as well.”

Roche encouraged anyone who may be experiencing drug-related intimidation to go to gardaí, stressing the force’s private and confidential service that can support farmers.

A senior garda who works on drug intimidation cases told The Journal that cocaine is by far the most common drug in the cases that he deals with. 

Inspector James White of Thurles Garda Station heads up Tipperary’s Drug-Related Intimidation and Violence Engagement programme (Drive), which responds to such cases nationally. 

As an individual begins buying cocaine from a dealer, they will pay each time until they have the trust of the dealer, when they will be offered drugs “on tick”, he said, meaning that they don’t have to pay immediately. 

“Habit increases, debt increases, and then before they know it, they’re in a situation where they owe the dealer a large sum of money.”

Many people subject to drug-related intimidation aren’t even those directly involved – it could be parents, siblings, or other family members that are intimidated until they take on the drug user’s debt.

White believes that this type of intimidation has “always been there”, but that it is now increasingly being reported and people are coming forward.

“I suppose the difficulty was that a parent would learn that one of their children was addicted to cocaine, that the child had accrued a debt, and it was a case of where do we go, who can we talk to?

“Number one, there’s the element of shame. They think ‘I don’t want to let my neighbours, my family members, know that our son or our daughter is a drug user and has a drug debt’, and they can’t or try and pay the debt back. That’s the way they see the immediate solution to the immediate problem.”

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The inspector said that this approach is simply kicking the can down the road if the drug user doesn’t address and deal with their addiction problems.

Jim Finn, chair of the Mid-West Regional Drugs and Alcohol Forum, told The Journal: 

“If anyone wants to know the damage that this [drug use] is doing, all they have to do is look back at what happened in Waterford.”

An arson attack last month, believed to have been the result of drug-related intimidation, claimed the lives of two parents and three of their sons in Waterford city.

Finn said there is “fairly good evidence” that an increasing number of “well-to-do and successful” farmers have been using cocaine as a recreational drug.

He noted that cocaine has become more acceptable as a recreational drug in rural life. 

In his role as chair of the forum, he confirmed that the primary users of cocaine are often aged between 20 and their mid-30s – but even this could be something set to change.

At a recent function in Dublin, speaking to older people, Finn said he was told by one of them that cocaine has also rooted into an older generation living in the city.

“Red flashing lights appeared in front of me again and said, ‘Well, this can happen in the cities. It can happen in rural Ireland as well’,” Finn said.

He believes that communities taking a strong stand against drug use, particularly cocaine, in their area is needed to dissuade further people falling victim to addiction.

Help for people 

Dawn Russell, chief executive of Ana Liffey, said that in the past 18 months, the charity has seen significant increases in the number of people accessing its support in more rural areas – particularly in north Tipperary, where demand has doubled in the past year.

The charity, formerly known as the Ana Liffey Drug Project, is an organisation that began in Dublin before establishing centres in the north-east and mid-west. It aims to support people struggling with addiction and homelessness.

While its main source of clientele remains those who are entrenched in drug addiction that come from marginalised and disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, this is changing.

“We are more and more finding people who are professionals are coming to seek our help for cocaine use, particularly powder cocaine and poly-substance use: ketamine, alcohol and cocaine use,” Russell told The Journal.

“So the drug types that would be more associated with lifestyles and recreation rather than entrenched addiction.

“We’re seeing a younger profile of people access our services – people who are managing to hold down jobs, rental properties, mortgages, but are now coming under increased pressure because of their substance use, and they’re in a high-risk cohort, and they’re slipping into a more addictive space with their substance use.”

Russell said that many people have a stereotype of a person with addiction issues being someone who has experienced trauma, which is not always the case. She said many addicts are people who have gone from using cocaine or alcohol or gambling from a social perspective and “just gotten caught in the loop”.

Cocaine’s worming into different societal groups is a result of many factors, she continued, but its public perception is one of the drug’s main marketing factors.

Many people who buy cocaine for social events typically do so from someone they know, or get a hookup from a friend. This can create a misguided feeling of trust and confidence in the product.

“The cocaine that people are buying through Instagram Messenger from people that they think they know and trust is the exact same cocaine that’s getting washed up as crack that our street homeless clients are using,” Russell warned.

Anyone wishing to access supports can do so with Ana Liffey by calling for free on 1800 78 68 28

If you wish to find a service in your area, you can do so here