Yes, in Northern Ireland the issue that my hon. Friend raises is well known and, unfortunately, replicated elsewhere. There were particularly acute problems there for a considerable period of time. Organised criminal gangs were peddling and distributing drugs, often using young people to enhance their distribution methods.
I have bid for this debate for some time now, and I have taken note of some of the national and international newspaper coverage. In The Times a few weeks ago was a headline about a crack epidemic sweeping Germany. In The Daily Telegraph: “Narco gangs hold sway in the Med”. Those are just two headlines, but they indicate to the readers and the wider public the growing problem across the Western world, particularly the developed world, of gangs being able to influence society not for good but to peddle death and destruction in the wake of their drug trade. Ecuador has been in the news recently, with drug cartels there causing mayhem and destruction in recent months. There are drug gangs in Venezuela—and Honduras, Guatemala, and Trinidad and Tobago have all suffered problems.
The issue has crystallised in the UK in recent times. Last September a huge haul was seized off the coast of the Republic of Ireland; it was so big that the ship was
almost sinking. Then €150 million of illegal drugs were seized. They were not destined purely for the Irish Republic; the market for drugs in the Irish Republic would not have amounted to €150 million on one trip—they were destined for all of these islands and possibly further into Europe. There was an even bigger haul in the port of Philadelphia some five years ago, when $1 billion of illegal drugs was seized.
I mention those two particular hauls because we all know that the reality of the 21st century is that for every haul that is discovered, other consignments get through via other routes for distribution. I do not know whether one in 10 or one in 20 consignments is caught, but we know for absolute certain that it is not one in one. If drugs worth $1 billion were caught in America in one haul and €150 million worth were caught off the coast of the Irish Republic less than six months ago, how many billions’ worth of illegal drugs have reached these islands and continental Europe in the past few years? Our hospitals and treatment units all bear testimony to the problems that these illegal drugs are causing, particularly for our young people.
However, an interesting facet about the drug deaths issue is that although it is predominantly young people who begin experimenting with drugs and peddling them, it is those in an older age range—those between 40 and 50—who tend to die from drugs or drug-related problems. That indicates to all of us that even those who talk about drugs as a leisure pursuit or about “casual use” of drugs, perhaps at the weekend, find that, as with other substances, drugs become addictive. They come to be increasingly used in a weekday or weekday evening setting, as opposed to being used “casually” on a Friday or Saturday night, whether out at a social event or at home. The problem comes later in life, and we see what has happened in our hospital beds and treatment rooms.
My reason for raising this issue today is that hopefully the Minister will be able to reassure us that her colleagues, both nationally and internationally, will ensure that the issue is brought to the attention of the authorities that can do something at the point of departure—whether in central America or eastern Europe; where there are hotspots—to try to stop the drugs from being dispatched in the first place.
Of course, the National Crime Agency has a central role to play and I hope to receive an assurance from the Minister that this type of issue will concentrate minds—not just now, in the aftermath of a huge haul like the one in September last year, but on an ongoing basis; and not just over the next few weeks and months, but for years to come.