Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:


After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.

Dunphy apology for irresponsible drugs comments

Dan Collins

The Examiner (Ireland)

Tuesday 13 Jan 1998

ONE of this country's most effusive journalists has said his views on
illegal drugs, quoted in a newspaper, were irresponsible and should
not have been uttered in the public domain.

Last night, Eamon Dunphy, anchorman with Today FM and presenter
of the popular The Last Word programme, withdrew the comments
which appeared in Ireland On Sunday.

"There is no one else to blame, not the newspaper and not the
journalist who interviewed me. I am the one to blame, the buck stops
here," he said.

When asked in the newspaper interview if offered would he take
cocaine, Mr Dunphy responded "F***ing yes. I take it if I am
offered. I would be a regular user of marijuana, but I am not a regular
user of coke. You can't get good coke in this town."

He also told Ireland On Sunday that he desired to try crack but said it
was impossible to buy on the streets.

Last night, a regretful Mr Dunphy said he had made those comments in
a jocose and tongue-in-cheek fashion and regretted if they had
offended people, including the garda, who are "seriously engaged in
dealing with the consequences of drugs."

He was withdrawing his comments "out of respect for those people.
This was no fault of anybody's, except mine."

Mr Dunphy stressed he was not being flippant about the "dreadful
contemporary reality of drugs. I am fully cognisant of the havoc and
destruction which drug abuse has caused to far too many families in
Ireland and I certainly do not wish to undermine the work of many
groups and individuals in their efforts to discourage abuse."

And he issued an unreserved apology for his remarks "to the very
many people to whom they have caused offence."

Yesterday, a spokesman for the National Drugs Unit said he was
surprised by Mr Dunphy's remarks in relation to crack cocaine, one of
the most addictive substances on the black market.

 

 

 

After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back. 




This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.

Feel free to link to this page!