Junkies are parasites, plain and simple.
First things first, the drug problems here in scotland are VERY different from the drug problems in the US, so the causes and effects may be very different also.
I live in Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, population of around 1 million all in, (note that i am including the attached towns such as motherwell, east kilbride etc etc in this figure). For those not familiar with Scotland, most of the population lives in what is known as the central belt, Glasgow to the west with its surrounding towns, and Edinburgh to the east, with Dundee to north pretty much defines the cenral belt. To the North lies Aberdeen, and in between we have all the small villages, towns and hamlets that make up the highlands, it wasnt always this way though, the population of the highlands was cleared to make way for farming bythe landowners, hence most americans and canadians have scottish heritage somewhere in the family tree. Glasgow is characterised by two things, religion and poverty.
Religion When your born in glasgow, you are either celtic or rangers, catholic or protestant(unless you are part of glasgows thriving ethnic community of course....), this is and has always been the chief source of violence here. Im sure most readers are familiar with northern ireland and The Troubles. In a nutshell the loyalists(protestants, known colloquially as Huns) want N.I to be part of the UK(England, Scotland, Wales, and N.I) and the republicans(catholics, known col. as Tims or Feinians(after Finn Gael, legendary founder of Irelend) want NI to be part of Eire(Ireland). Glasgow(for that matter scotland) has two major football(soccer) teams, Celtic and Rangers, Catholic and Protestant. Celtic was founded to be a team for the large Irish population in glasgow, and has a mainly catholic support, and heres where the problems start.
The Old Firm When celtic play rangers at either Ibrox or Parkhead(Ibrox is the rangers stadium, Parkhead(known to fans as Paradise, officially as Celtic Park) this is an old firm game. The only certainty is that on these days someone will usually die, or at the very best someone will end up in hospital, seriuosly injured. Violence. Young boys, grown men, and old men alike get together to fight each other over some percieved slight, but its basically a continuation(in an abstract way) of the struggle for iriish independance or British Imperial Hegemony. The slogan for the republicans is (and excuse my gaelic spelling) Toiscidh ar la (chucky ar la) roughly our day will come. Graffiti in glasgow is always sectarian, either IRA, PIRA, UDF, UDA whatever. Essentially paramiltary groups to start with they now take to do with supply and control of drugs in Belfast etc... and most of the killing and "dissapearances" are related to turf wars in one way or another.
junkies , they are everywhere, and i mean everywhere, failures, weak willed, and wretched, begging, robbing theiving, stabbing and killing. What gets me is the number of junkies that will beg, and hen u say no, they then get aggressive and start to hassle you, i have had needles and knives pulled on me countless times, and in my old home was forced to move after they came through the door. They broke into my home, so i defended myself(with extreme prejudice). the next day theye were back, replete with a group of neds(Non educated Delinquents, now a generic term for tracksuit wearing, sociopathic young people) to get me back for hurting them when it was them that had attacked me
Neds and junkies always claim the slogans of the IRA and the UDF as their own, so most peple become desensitized to the fact that the UDA and the IRA were real paramilitary organisations, with real guns who killed real people. People not from NI have no right to cliam a cause as their own any more than i could start claiming the cause of EZLN or ETA. Junkies rae a real problem in scotland, they restrict our enjoymane and freedom, they restrict our movements through town at night. Neds are worse, as there is no drug fuelling their mailce, just boredom. Last night a sixty year old man was beaten nearly to death for walking in the wrong street by 15 year olds. I have been hit with bottles, sticks and kicked and stamped on for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. RIDICULOUS. Its maybe about time that the unthinkable was thought with regards to these problems. Time to clean house perhaps