An addict's story

`John" had his first "tooter" (smoke) of heroin at a party in Ballymena when he was 17, just after he left school around five…

`John" had his first "tooter" (smoke) of heroin at a party in Ballymena when he was 17, just after he left school around five years ago. He was one of a group of 30 or 40 young people who were heavily into the rave dance scene since their early teens, spending their weekends at dance venues around Northern Ireland. He is articulate and, like most of his friends, comes from a reasonably well-off family background. He is still only 23 and has been an addict for five years.

He recalls: "I didn't touch it again for six months and I started into it after that. I was addicted from then. For the first couple of years I kept the job. It was no problem. I was getting good money as a supervisor. Then into the second year or so I started to take too many days off and was falling asleep and that. I was made redundant. "When I started four or five years ago there was trouble getting gear. (When he still had a car he drove to Dublin to buy heroin in Ballyfermot and Ballymun). Then, it was one day there and one day not there and you bought enough to do you a couple of days. But from two or three years ago it has been a constant supply. You can get it constantly."

Most of his friends from his rave days also became addicted to heroin. Two years ago, with his job gone and in the throes of addiction, he began selling the drug and was arrested and charged with intent to supply (he had just over one gram, with a "street value" of around £200). He was given a nine-month prison sentence. Another friend was sentenced to three years for a similar offence. "John" says there are now between 40 and 50 Ballymena heroin addicts in prison in the North. Heroin is easily available in the prisons, he says. He describes it as a "great prison drug. . . you can sleep and you don't mind being locked up. There is no hassle."

When he and his girlfriend, also an addict, decided to break from their habit after his release from prison, he said they faced a lengthy bureaucratic process, writing to the local health authorities and waiting months for an interview and examination prior to acceptance to the Tobermaveen detoxification clinic, about 10 miles away.

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There is also no needle exchange in Ballymena. "John" said he recently came across a group of five users who had been sharing the same syringe for two weeks. He and other addicts are concerned that Aids and other diseases will spread to the town.

The parallel drug treatments, like methadone or diamorphine, are shunned by the medical profession in the North and are only available to pregnant or post-natal mothers and people with serious medical complaints. "John" buys the drugs to cure his heroin-related ailments on the street. He says he could not even get sleeping tablets or tranquillisers from doctors.

He reckons there are now maybe 400 addicts in Ballymena and many others - including young people from prosperous backgrounds - addicted in the outlying rural areas.

He describes a recent RUC claim to have rid the town of heroin as a "joke". Only a few hours after the arrest of several local people, in an operation surrounded by considerable publicity, "John" said he was able to buy heroin within a few minutes in the town. He says the supply remains uninterrupted.