One in four adults in the Republic have taken an illegal drug at least once in their lifetime. Drug use among young people is on the rise, while there are up to 1.35 million harmful drinkers here. These are the challenging statistics against which the new national drug strategy, Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery, is set.
The renaming of the latest drug strategy, which covers the period 2017 to 2025, is deliberate. It sends a clear message that a health-led approach to substance abuse has replaced a strategy centred on the criminal justice system. This is welcome.
The provision of dedicated funding to the Health Service Executive (HSE) to open the State’s first supervised injection facility in Dublin is significant. Supervised drug consumption rooms not only reduce deaths but engage a hard-to-reach group in services that could provide support for drug users’ often complex needs.
Source: The Irish Times, 20/07/17
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