HR, our regional public TV network for Hessen.....did a long piece on Frankfurt and the drug epidemic.
So, to lay out this story....I'll describe how Frankfurt was at the end of the 1970s, and you'd basically say that hash/cannabis and heroin were it. The binge business....the massive dealer issues....these all came in the period after the wall came down (after 1990). Nothing existed that made you call it a 'problem'.
In this new era (after 1990)....the dealers were no longer Turks....they were other 'new' guests of the country. The bad part of Frankfurt? It basically was a cone-shaped area about 1,200 feet from the front of the station....going into the red-light district.
In the past twenty years? There's dozens of drugs now available and the police will admit that the 'war' is finished....you can't rid the city of the drug problem. At the same time, there is massive hostility of regular people who live within a kilometer of the station and see the whole area as a junkie-paradise.
What HR says? They number the junkie population now in the city of Frankfurt at around 5,000.
The talk of private security being brought in by pubs/restaurants to resolve the problem? Too costy.
The crime now in this district.....to include within the station itself? I'd tell anyone using the train station (even the subway)....to make your way in and as quickly as possible....get to your next connection. Get the heck out of the station as quickly as possible. There's no reason to linger in the area in front of the station or on the streets of the next two or three blocks.
What'll eventually happen? HR just hints that social programs are being discussed and some rehab offerings.
My humble belief is that it'll reach a stage where 10,000 junkies exist in the Bahnhof-quarter, and the public goes into an election where various parties get 'fired'. Then we end up with some shocking compound area where the junkies are dumped into, given a full year of rehab (mandated) and those who don't resolve their issue....just spend the rest of their life in a compound on the edge of the city.
No comments:
Post a Comment