Drug use is not made respectable because it takes place in the nicer Dublin postal zones, the Archbishop of Dublin said today.
Dublin Archbishop Dr Diarmuid Martin said no seller or user can be proud to be involved in the murky, shameful world of illegal substances.
Dr Martin, who unveiled a new report Violence in Irish Society - Towards an Ecology of Peace,said drugs are destroying lives every day across the city.
The document, created by the Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs, highlighted the destructive effects of alcohol and drug abuse, and the need for a structured family and community life.
“Drugs are at the heart of gangland violence,” Dr Martin said in St Paul’s Church in Smithfield, Dublin. “Young lives are being wasted, and families and communities are being ripped apart by the terrible plague of drug abuse. There can be no tolerance of this trade.
“The drug trade is a murky, shameful world of which no one who has any involvement - as a trader or as a consumer - can be proud," he said.
"There is no way in which it can be rendered respectable. Drug use is not made respectable because it takes place in the nicer Dublin postal zones.”
Dr Martin said violence had destroyed the lives of so many young people, including those whose lives have been tragically taken and the perpetrators. “Dramatically, some of these perpetrators are barely out of their childhood and their lives will be marked for ever."
PA