OFFICIAL FIGURES, which show a fall in the number receiving treatment for heroin addiction, are painting a misleading picture of the drugs problem, new research from NUI Maynooth has found.
A 15-month study of drug users in Dublin’s southwest inner suburbs found almost all drug users, including heroin addicts, used a “cocktail” of substances. It also found that younger users were shunning heroin in favour of crack and powder cocaine, and “street” and prescription tranquillisers.
The study, published yesterday, also shows that heroin users who were officially in treatment, usually involving methadone, were still using other drugs and continued to use heroin.
The study, A Dizzying Array of Substances; An Ethnographic Study of Drug Use in the Canal Communitiesby Dr Jamie Saris and Fiona O'Reilly for the department of anthropology at NUI Maynooth, says Government drug policy is failing to address current drug usage.
The number of people in the canal communities area, which includes the suburbs of Rialto, Inchicore and Bluebell, registered on the Government’s central treatment list has stabilised at about 200 (or 20 per 1,000 population) since 2005. Most of those on the list are in the 30 to 34 age group, with just 8 per cent under 25.
However, these figures are “opiate-centric”, Dr Saris said, as they only relate to those being treated for heroin addition.
“The big problem is that, as far as Government is concerned, ‘drugs’ from a treatment perspective has traditionally meant heroin. Thus the apparent levelling off of the need for a very opiate-centric treatment service in the canal communities in recent years is deceptive.”
The Government figures also masked the fact that almost all heroin users were now poly-drug users, according the the study.
A survey of 92 heroin and methadone users in the canal area found that although 98 per cent were receiving methadone, 63 per cent had used heroin in the previous three months, 30 per cent had used crack cocaine, and 22 per cent had used powder cocaine. Some 46 per cent had also taken street tranquillisers, 50 per cent were on prescribed tranquillisers, and 60 per cent had also smoked cannabis in the past three months.
The research found there was a “strong stigma” against heroin use among 16- to 25-year-old drug users who saw it as too dangerous, but did not recognise the dangers of other substances such as cocaine and illegally-obtained prescription tranquillisers.
Dr Saris said the treatment infrastructure was not equipped to deal with the needs of poly-drug users. Government drug policy needed to be changed to focus not just on one drug, or even a variety of drugs, but on individual users and their behaviour.
