Concern over plans to force drug addicts into rehabilitation

Community drug projects have expressed serious concern at controversial government plans to force drugs addicts to undergo rehabilitation.

CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign, an umbrella group for local projects, said resources need to be pumped into voluntary rehabilitation programmes.

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Methadone clinic for town in limbo Wexford Ireland

Paul Delaney, Coordinator of The Cornmarket Project, stated to the Methadone Review Panel that despite the fact that the HSE has indicated that a methadone service would be provided in Wexford, “this still has not happened”, which is putting former heroin addicts at grave risk.

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Experts agree heroin crisis on way to becoming an epidemic in Ireland

Once seen as a scourge of working-class Dublin, heroin use is now on the rise throughout Ireland. As the government move to ban head-shops leads to fears of an increase in illicit drug use, Hot Press presents a special investigation into the country’s growing heroin habit.

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Crime lords hit a new high thanks to Ireland head-banger drugs strategy

Albert Einstein’s defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It is a fitting description of our drug strategy in this country.

Christy Kinahan, the reputed mastermind of the drugs gang broken up in Spain, Britain and Ireland during the past week, was in and out of jail between 1987 and 2001. He then moved to Spain and the police there have been suggesting he has amassed a fortune of between €100m and €500m from drug dealing in less than a decade.

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Year-long wait for addicts to access methadone treatment

Heroin  addicts in the north-east are waiting more than a year to get on a methadone programme, figures from the Health Service Executive have shown.

There are about 430 people nationwide waiting to for methadone treatment, with some areas reporting a backlog which means addicts must wait several months before they can access the heroin substitute.

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Number of new drug treatment cases rises 50% in five years in Ireland

The number of new drug treatment cases has jumped by almost 50% in the last five years, new figures show. Data compiled and analysed by the Health Research Board (HRB) shows that the number of new cases involving people aged under 18 has also risen.

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Fury over methadone clinic:Dublin

Northside residents are up in arms over plans to open a methadone clinic in Dublin 15 – right next to a day-centre for people with intellectual disabilities and Down Syndrome. The clinic, which the Health Service Executive (HSE) describes as a “one stop shop” for drug addicts, will operate within feet of the Weavers and Tofa day centre in Coolmine Industrial Estate. Parents, who fear for the “exceptionally vulnerable and trusting” people who attend the craft centre, are calling for the clinic to be relocated.

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Treated problem drug use in Ireland

Alcohol and Drug Research Unit Health Research Board, January 2010

Significant improvements in the NDTRS data-collection processes and procedures mean that the HRB is now able to report on the information collected from treatment centres on a more regular basis. From 2009, the figures on the extent of treated drug and alcohol use will be published within a year of collection. Trends papers will also be published regularly to examine changes over time. The data presented in this paper provide a description of problem drug use in Ireland by HSE area of residence.

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Concern as drug rehab projects have funding axed

Nearly 40 drug rehabilitation projects are having their funding axed, and 11 face closure, a Dáil committee was told yesterday.

The Office for the Minister for Drugs (OMD) told the public accounts committee (PAC) it was “very concerned” at the decision by the Department of Education, which funds the Rehabilitation Aided Support Programme (RASP), and said it had not been consulted beforehand.

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Government in bid to put ‘head shops’ out of business with costly public insurance

The government is to introduce new measures that will attempt to put alternative lifestyle shops, which sell a range of “legal highs”, out of business permanently.

The Sunday Tribune has learned that a potentially crippling public liability insurance is to be made mandatory for all so-called “head shops”, which sell a variety of legal party drugs.

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