9000 items dumped in drug disposal bins

A MASSIVE 9,000 items relating to drugs were dumped into specially-provided RAPID disposal bins locally during the past year, even though the facility was out-of-service for a period due to lockdown.

The figures were released by the local Policing and Community Safety Partnership (PCSP) at its annual meeting last week.

They come as the PSNI’s district commander for the area, Superintendent Alywin Barton, warned drugs are available in “every town and village” in the Fermanagh and Omagh council area.

RAPID – or Remove All Prescription and Illegal Drugs – is an initiative that promotes and facilitates the removal of all types of prescription and illegal drugs from the local community and provides disposal bins in various places across the council area.
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Six of the so-called RAPID drug disposal bins were available locally, but two extra have now been added to meet the additional demand.

Figures included in the PCSP’s annual report, which has just been published, show that the number of drug offences has increased.

“It is sometimes frustrating that we do not have a 100 per-cent outcome rate in relation to drugs because sometimes they are found on the street or in vehicles which have been searched and attributing them is not possible,” Superintendent Barton told the PCSP.

A total of 260 people were found in possession of drugs, compared to 257 the previous year.

The number of drug trafficking offences detected now stands at 46, slightly down on the previous year.

Omagh GP, and independent councillor, Josephine Deehan, said it was sad to hear that drugs were in all local towns and villages.

“That is such a terrible concern, but unfortunately drugs seem to be part and parcel of a good night out. It’s something which we have to try and change as a society,” she said.

Omagh town Sinn Fein councillor, Barry McElduff, called for the RAPID bins to be more accessible and their locations better publicised and for far more community education programmes in relation to drugs.

“Many people hear that ‘drugs are everywhere’, but have no real grasp of the scale of the problem of what they are looking for. There was an excellent programme run by Breakthru for a number of years, but it lost its funding to deliver such education.

“The value of this work needs to be recognised and properly resourced.”

Superintendent Barton said that the PSNI had adopted ‘proactive search and arrest’ operations in relation to drugs and other offences, including blackmail and enforcing European arrest warrants.

He added that officers in the Omagh, West Tyrone and Mid Tyrone areas had all been involved in search operations for drugs.