Here's a new perspective on Northern Ireland.

1, According to research, wherever you go in Belfast, east or west, you will find the same drugs being sold across the board. (Apparently the ecstacy in Northern Ireland is the best in the British Isles) The same types of drugs hit all areas at the same time i.e, If a particular type of Hashish becomes available in west belfast, it becomes available in east belfast simultaneously.

2, We know that small time drug dealers are likely to get into a great deal of trouble if they are caught by their own particular "unofficial" paramilitary "police force" (Knee capping, baseball bats and the like.)

3, It is clear that the drugs trade in The north is alive and well, otherwise there would be no hash to smoke, etc.

4, It can be deduced that the paramilitaries, having such a brutal way of controlling the drugs trade, are involved in it up to their necks.

5, Taking my first point into consideration, it can also be deduced that they recieve their supply from the same source(s)

6, An effective way of keeping control of such a lucrative business would be to ensure that peoples paranoia is kept as close to fever pitch as possible by bombing or shooting civilian targets on a fairly frequent basis.

- Each community is angered and scared into focusing on ancient history, believing their troubles to be derived solely from religious enmity and the paramilitaries are thus given a perverse legitimacy. (The wall stays up!)

- In the meantime, as the wool is pulled over their eyes, the real bandits, the mafiosi at the higher echelons of the chain of distribution, rub their hands together gleefully, and watch the money roll into their coffers.

I'd be interested in hearing whether or not this is the experience of anyone living in the North who 'mudcats'.

It would be a strange thing if the North of Ireland was the only place in the world where there isn't some kind of Mafia that was prepared to kill people in the name of a quick buck.