The living dead

I dropped off a customer at the Westbury hotel near Grafton St. the other day.
There were 4 taxis waiting so I headed off again.
On the way over to Auinger St. I saw what was once a really beautiful girl coming across the street. I stopped to let her pass and it was then that I looked at her face and into her eyes.
I swear to God if I had had a gun I would have blown her brains out.
She was a heroin addict, skin and bones looking into her eyes said it all.
The eyes are the window to the soul they say. The desperate emptiness in her eyes still scares me.
This once really beautiful kid was a walking skeleton with an empty desperate look of pain on her face.

There is no solution to this problem.
The top drugs barons rake in millions, the dealers further down make a profit, while at the bottom of the pile kids as young as 14 are becoming drug addicts.

25 years ago or so I got a radio call from Metro cabs and I was directed to a job and my customer was a drug dealer, he had a big mobile phone (A brick) and we went off to houses around Killiney, Foxrock where all the "quality" folk live.

Each deal was made 2 moves ahead, they would meet him at the gate and then he set the next deal in motion.It took a couple of hours in all.

Then he turned to face me "Don't judge me, I didn't ask them to take drugs, all I do is to provide a service and I cannot do this kind of work in my own car"
So in his own mind he justified his work.
One thing I will always blame him for was giving drugs to 2 young kids aged 12 to 14..
"No those are only Smarties, nothing stronger"
I know he will have something stronger when they are ready.
All these rich people living where we would all love to be

The wheel turns and the demand and supply grows by the day.

The book is coming on and there is quite a chapter on drugs.

Passing drug dealers on the Quays one day I said to my passenger how I would love to find a way to cure this problem. He gave me his business card and told me to ring him and he would arrange a world tour to explain how to beat the drugs problem to the world leaders.

A Dubliner called Bram Stoker wrote a book called Dracula, he wrote about vampires who suck the blood from people in the night. Then once you have been bitten a couple of times you become a vampire as well.

You join the living dead
Sound familiar?