This could be your child.

In 2010 the controversial Raytheon plant in Derry closed it's doors with the remainder of an initial 33 workers made redundant. The Derry plant had made headlines in 2006 when Derry 'anti-war' activists including Eamonn McCann took over the plant smashing up computers and damaging the company's communication hub.

The so called 'Raytheon 9' said they took the action to stop Raytheon manufacturing weapons components at the Derry plant. At the time Eamonn McCann said 'Our defence was not a moral defence – it was a political defence.'

So why bring this up now after all this time?

In the Irish Times on Thursday 9^th January there was an article/opinion piece published, it's author, Eamonn McCann. The article 'Bankers getting a legal high from the authorities’ unwillingness to prosecute'. The article had the subheading Opinion: It is highly implausible that branch managers were unaware that they were being used to launder drugs money.

In 2010 Republican grouping- 'Republican Action Against Drugs' entered a shop in Derry City Centre and shot the owner Ray Coyle for selling 'legal highs'. This is not in any shape form or fashion to attempt to justify the brutal shooting of Ray Coyle. At the time there were a number of protests in Derry, when politicians came out and rightly condemned the shooting of Mr Coyle.

The funny thing, not one of them condemned that Mr Coyle was selling so called 'legal highs', and lets be honest some of these 'legal high's' are described as 'bath salts' or 'plant food' whilst others have been found to have been labelled 'not for human consumption'.

It is highly implausible that Mr Coyle didn't know what he was selling, and the purpose it was being used for. Mr Coyle was intested only in the money that lined his pockets regardless of the misery caused by what he was selling. 

Eamonn McCann said after the shooting with regard to Mr Coyle 'he did sell legal highs, which as he points out is perfectly legal'. Considering that context maybe Eamonn McCann will explain what law Raytheon broke?

There are many things that may be legal but are immoral such as the selling of legal highs, or the legalised extortion of payday lenders. So the question is should a blind eye be turned?

How many desperate people in debt have turned to payday lenders? In July 2013 Citizens Advice Chief Executive Gillian Guy described some of the payday loan problems reported to the national charity in the previous month as ‘absolutely horrifying’ as borrowers face losing their jobs, homes and one person said they contemplated suicide. 

So why has McCann or any of the politicians not led a campaign against payday lenders in Derry City centre? Or why has McCann or any of the politicians not led a campaign against the selling of legal highs?

McCann said in his defence on the events at the Raytheon office, that their defence was not a moral one but a political one. In the case of people selling 'legal highs' I would argue that there is a moral case for protests to be staged at their place of business, just as I would argue that it would be acceptable to protest at doors of payday lenders. 

There's an election on the way and no doubt McCann or one of his cronies will set up a new party with a new acronym and encourage people to waste their vote. So if they call to your door ask  what their position is on the selling of 'legal highs' and will they take a moral stance on this? or are they happy to support the blatant capitalism of 'head shops'? 

Furthemore there is a political case to be made for the politicians and the political parties who protested at the brutal shooting of Ray Coyle to stand up and be counted in putting pressure on shops to stop peddling so called 'legal highs'. Just as they would need to stand up and put an end to payday loan companies.

But knowing some of the politicians in Northern Iron, they could well be leasing some of their properties to these very same businesses. Nothing would surprise me.

"The shop has been there for many years", journalist and socialist campaigner Eamonn McCann told UTV."It sells clothes and it sells jewellery and so forth, and true he did sell legal highs, which as he points out is perfectly legal" (UTV)

"Regardless of what interpretation and rationale they put on the attack on this man, it's wrong and it shouldn't have happened", Sinn Fein MLA Martina Anderson (UTV)

"Having spoken to the Police, they've told me this man was doing nothing illegal, nothing at all illegal, and who are these people to say that he has been doing things that are wrong?" Jim Roddy, City Centre Manager (UTV)

The true face of legal highs 

 Jimmy Guichard lying in his Dartford hospital bed minutes before his death after taking legal highs. ths could be your child, it could be my child.