Towards healing, not fear:

A nonviolent response to

Drug-Related Intimidation (DRI)

The newly published Drug-Related Intimidation in Northern Ireland report https://www.endingtheharm.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Drug-related-Intimidation-Report-Tagged.pdf lays bare a wound at the heart of our communities. It describes “a deeply corrosive force… that undermines safety, exploits vulnerability, and perpetuates cycles of fear, addiction, and criminality.” Those words, from Justice Minister Naomi Long, set the tone for a sobering but necessary piece of work.

The report’s findings are stark: intimidation linked to drugs affects every layer of society — “young people, women, families, professionals, and entire communities” — and has become normalised in ways that silence victims and blur the lines between those who cause harm and those who endure it. It shows how fear isolates, how debt becomes coercion, and how shame and stigma push people further from help.

As a nonviolent organisation rooted in peacebuilding, Forthspring’s response begins with listening. Nonviolence, as we understand it, is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice, dialogue, and relationship. The report itself points towards this, calling for “a collaborative approach… underpinned by partnership working and service coordination” (p. 67). It recognises that policing “may only be part of such an approach,” and that community-based mediation and restorative responses must also be explored.

This is precisely where Forthspring’s ethos and experience lie. Our peacebuilding and youth work emerge from a conviction that cycles of violence can be interrupted by connection — by rebuilding trust, offering safe spaces, and meeting fear with care rather than control. The report’s recommendation for “safe spaces where people can share their experiences without judgement” (p. 44) echoes our daily practice. We have long seen that people heal in community, not isolation.

In the tradition of Kingian Nonviolence, we hold that “nonviolence is not a method for cowards; it does resist.” (Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom). Resistance, in this context, means building systems that honour dignity over domination — transforming relationships rather than destroying them. Our work embodies what Dr. King called “the refusal to cooperate with evil combined with the willingness to suffer for good.”

The report’s proposed public health model for response — integrating justice, health, and community — aligns closely with our approach. It calls for “the improved and purposive coordination of existing community-based interventions” (p. 67) and a trauma-informed, person-centred model that recognises social determinants of harm. In essence, it reframes drug-related intimidation as a public health issue rather than simply a criminal one.

This is a crucial step. When addiction, poverty, and fear meet, coercion flourishes. But as the report wisely notes, “partnership working demands thorough engagement and clear roles and responsibilities” (p. 67). That is, we cannot outsource compassion to the justice system alone. Community organisations — especially those of us embedded in local relationships — must be resourced and trusted to build the kind of relational safety that punitive systems cannot.

But without sustained investment in community groups — particularly those empowering and working with young people — such transformation cannot take root. Nonviolence requires infrastructure: safe spaces, skilled facilitators, and trusted relationships built over years. When funding is fragile, so too is hope. If we want lasting change, we must match our moral commitment with material support, ensuring that local organisations have the stability to nurture resilience and renewal.

At Forthspring, we will respond by deepening our nonviolent practice:

• continuing to create safe, nonjudgmental spaces for young people and families under pressure;

• investing in restorative dialogue that addresses harm without replicating it;

• and strengthening our gardening, arts, and wellbeing programmes that reconnect people with dignity, belonging, and hope.

These reflect what peace scholar John Paul Lederach describes as “the moral imagination” — the ability “to stay grounded in the real while believing in the possibility of the unexpected and the transformative.” For us, that means nurturing community gardens where neighbours once stood apart, offering young people creative alternatives to despair, and modelling the slow, patient work of reconciliation.

Our work teaches us daily that violence — including the silent violence of intimidation — thrives where people feel powerless. The antidote is empowerment: community confidence, meaningful work, and relationships that model compassion over coercion. As the report notes, “further options for supporting recovery, rehabilitation and desistance need to be explored… providing meaningful and purposeful activity” (p. 66).

There is a wider societal responsibility here, too. The report reveals that “many victims of DRI struggle with navigating the wider service landscape… fearful and isolated, trusting very few services” (p. 67). If we wish to end intimidation, we must make help visible, accessible, and trustworthy. That means challenging stigma, reforming systems that retraumatise, and recognising community work as vital peace infrastructure.

As civil rights veteran Bernard LaFayette reminds us, “Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.” It is not about avoidance, but engagement; not silence, but truth spoken with compassion. For a society still shaped by its own history of fear and control, this report is a mirror. It asks whether we can face intimidation not with vengeance, but with courage and care. It invites us to build what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the Beloved Community — where justice is restorative and peace is lived.

At Forthspring, we stand with all who are working towards that vision. Nonviolence begins here: in listening, in tending the soil of community, and in choosing every day to answer fear not with silence, but with hope.

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Forthspring website is at https://www.forthspring.org/