In 2023, there were 184 deaths on Irish roads. This tragic loss of life included 44 pedestrians, eight cyclists, and three e-scooter users. This year, the figure is likely to exceed 200 people. Public concern is evidenced by the regular media attention to the increase or decrease in the number of road traffic deaths, and by the opposition parties raising the issue in the Dáil and elsewhere. More legislation is promised, such as increased penalty points and fines for specific offences, or a clampdown on drivers repeatedly driving on provisional licenses. Calls are made for increased investment in road safety and more Garda enforcement of the road traffic laws. And rightly so. Every death on the roads is a tragedy which leaves a whole family traumatized. Whatever can be done to reduce the number of deaths on our roads should be done.
In 2020, there were 786 drug-related deaths. Between 2004 and 2020, there were 11,086 such deaths. Ireland’s number of drug deaths is four times the European average, surpassing the Baltic and Nordic regions.
Despite the fact that far more people die each year in Ireland from drug overdoses and drug related illnesses than from road traffic accidents, there is little or no publicity, virtually no media coverage, no questions in the Dáil, no outcry from the opposition parties, no demand for action. We know that the number of drug treatment services are very inadequate, that some people die while waiting to access treatment, and that offering faster access to treatment is likely to reduce the number of deaths. Nine counties, with close to half a million people, have no designated drug or alcohol residential services.
Public and Political Concern
How do we explain the public and political concern for the victims of road traffic accidents and the relative lack of public and political concern for the victims of drug misuse? This week’s tragedy in Portlaoise prison with eleven men hospitalised following suspected synthetic opioid overdoses may seem to contradict my point but any public interest will be fleeting and robust changes to drug treatment services are unlikely to follow. Curiosity is not the same as real concern.
No doubt the public identify much more readily with the victims of road traffic accidents. Any of those victims could be one of us. We could just as easily be the passing pedestrian or the passenger or driver of a vehicle that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it is more difficult to identify with the drug user, because we are not, nor likely to become, serious drug users – if you discount nicotine and alcohol!
But perhaps there is a value judgment here as well. The victims of road traffic accidents are perceived to be mostly upright, law-abiding citizens, ordinary family members whose deaths are a tragedy. They are perceived to be people who work and who therefore make a contribution to society, or they are, at least, seeking work and wanting to make such a contribution. They were “useful” to society and we mourn their premature death. Drug users on the other hand are often perceived to be irresponsible – responsible only for their own misfortune – making no contribution to Irish society but rather are a drain on limited resources. Their deaths are often perceived as of little loss, greeted with apathy or even relief. They were “useless” to society and their deaths pass without notice.
Value Judgments
The contrast between the public reaction to deaths from drug misuse and the public reaction to deaths from road traffic accidents reveal something to us about ourselves and how we value people. Our culture values people by their contribution to society, by what they give, by what comes out of them; the Christian vision values people because of who they are, by what goes into them. Their value arises because they are, from the moment of creation, loved infinitely and unconditionally by God – that love, given to them, gives them infinite value. So the totally paralyzed person, unable to leave their bed, has the same value as the hardest worker who “gets up early in the morning”; the drug user has the same value, in the Christian vision, as the managing director.
Many drug users may have begun using drugs as a way – perhaps the only way they knew – of suppressing their painful memories of childhood abuse or other early childhood adversities. They use drugs to self-medicate. When they address their addiction, and become drug free, this may bring back those memories and push them back to using drugs again. Overcoming addiction is one of the hardest things to do – as anyone who has tried to stop smoking will agree – and those who try should be encouraged, supported and respected, not rejected.
