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JIM SPENCE: Has compassion fatigue kicked in with drug addiction?

Does ongoing tragedy still resonate with majority who aren’t personally affected by bleak toll of wasted lives, squandered amid squalor and despair?

This mural by the artist, the Rebel Bear, appeared on a wall in Dundee ahead of publication of drug death figures in 2022. The Rebel Bear/PA Wire.
This mural by the artist, the Rebel Bear, appeared on a wall in Dundee ahead of publication of drug death figures in 2022. The Rebel Bear/PA Wire.

Has compassion fatigue kicked in with drug addiction?

The drugs trade is an industry which keeps many folk employed, from the police to the dealers to those working in the various addiction sectors.

I wonder though if folk in Dundee and elsewhere have become inured to the issue of drug deaths; whether they’re anaesthetized to a problem many feel has no solution.

I think despite a slight fall in local deaths from drug use, world-weariness may have kicked in with what some regard as an intractable issue.

I’ve pondered whether the ongoing tragedy still resonates with the majority who aren’t personally affected by the bleak toll of wasted lives, squandered amid squalor and despair.

Heavy drinkers tend to be tolerated with alcohol use widespread across class boundaries, but for some people drug use invokes disdain and distaste.

I’ve never understood why anyone would take drugs of dubious provenance with addictively dangerous qualities.

I get aggrieved at the baleful disregard for their own well-being of someone throwing pills down their throat or injecting substances with no idea where they come from, what concoctions are in them, or what the effects might be.

Once addiction takes hold it’s a vicious downward spiral.

Tough choices

There’s no more dispiriting sight than watching men and women shambling around our streets like zombies in the throes of a grim habit which appears nigh on impossible to break, particularly with the insufficient resources the Scottish government is directing at the problem.

And resources are the elephant in the room.

Money is scarce but tough choices are abundant.

Arguments are as natural as night following day as to whether we throw extra funds at a battle which seems un-winnable, or concentrate scarce cash on other pressing needs where success is more easily measured.

There are too many calls on limited funds in a host of areas from mental health to dialysis machines and everything in between.

In Victorian times they distinguished between those they termed the deserving and the undeserving poor, those reckless and feckless souls incapable of operating in normal society.

Council leader John Alexander and Alcohol and Drug Partnership independent chair John Wylie in January. Image: Gareth Jennings/DC Thomson.

The war on drugs and on rehabilitating our modern day feckless souls looks to have been lost long ago.

The Scottish government despite its glib talk of safe consumption rooms ran the white flag up the pole years ago and the problem remains as obdurate as ever.

Conflicting reports of the successes or failures of various programmes tried in countries elsewhere adds confusion to the issue.

Intractable problems

There’s no magic bullet, no overnight solution, no instant panacea to be found anywhere.

Many folk are enduring tough times with rising living costs and stagnant wages, and it’s understandable if they struggle to find time from their own everyday pressures to locate their sympathy button for the intractable problems of opiate addiction.

The money to feed the grim habit sustains organised criminals, merciless in their pursuit of fresh customers and brutal in punishing those who can’t pay, even targeting families and relatives of those who deal in the vile trade to secure their debts.

There’s a well-trodden path from England to Dundee and other towns with county lines gangs who prey on the weak and addicted.

We see the results with cars occasionally mysteriously burned out in streets, and beatings and stabbings dished out to those indebted and unable to meet their dues.

Unless some miracle cure can be found to solve addiction and grind the drugs trade to a halt, I suspect many otherwise compassionate people will put this desperate issue to the back of their minds, concentrating instead on issues they feel are actually capable of resolution.


Bowling boost

On a lighter note amid an increase in industrial action and strikes in various industries there’s one strike I’m delighted to see returning to Dundee.

The arrival of Tenpin, the new bowling alley will conjure up happy memories for those of a certain vintage who used to enjoy the sport at the original bowling alley in the Marketgait.

The then Skyline Bowling Alley opened with the Lord Provost Maurice McManus taking the first shot.

He didn’t yell yabadabadoo like cartoon character Fred Flintstone who loved to flatten the pins, but it did usher in a short-lived boom for the sport.

Tenpin in Dundee. Image: Steve Brown/DC Thomson.

The Marketgait alley closed in the 1970s to become the students union for the Bell St Tech as it was then, but affectionately remained known as the Bowling Alley for generations of Dundonians who enjoyed some great live bands there.

If the new alley on the Kingsway (and there’s another one also soon to open in the city) can capture and retain the early enthusiasm of the original Bowling Alley then they’ll be on to a winner.

The city badly needs a shot in the arm in its entertainment sector.

Let’s hope this is the start of a trend.

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