There has been a worrying increase in the number of young people under the age of 18 being referred to local drug and alcohol addiction services in the past year, according to Cavan Drug Awareness (CDA).
The community-based group meanwhile continues to struggle to balance a lack of financial resources against increasing demand.
Mainly presenting addiction issues for cannabis use, MDMA, cocaine and alcohol, with seven referrals in 2012, that figures already looks like doubling by year end, 2013. Teenagers as young as 16, the majority males, have been referred to CDA from social services, Juvenile Liaison officers and occasionally Youthreach.
“Obviously these young people are often referred because they are engaging in high risk behaviour and have come to the attention of criminal justice,” Tim Murphy, project coordinator with the CDA Trust Ltd told The Anglo-Celt.
Former head shop drugs now available on streets
While the Criminal Justice (Psychoactive Substances) Act 2010 outlawed the sale of synthetic drugs, the types once available from head shops, Mr Murphy says there is serious concern regarding newer synthetic drugs readily available on the illicit drugs market.
While the loophole allowing their availability has been stitched-up, Mr Murphy says: “the drugs are still around. They’re still available on the black market.
“Where I’ve been working in addiction services for 10 years or so, people would come in and say ‘I’ve a heroin, cocaine or alcohol issue’ and within reason you know how to best apply therapy to that. But with the head shop drugs we’re sailing uncharted waters because there are so many different substances now.”
Services such as the CDA are attempting to assess the fall-out of addiction to substances manufactured in laboratories.
“It’s very, very difficult to keep up. The way they were sold when they were legal was very vague. The packet would say one thing... what was actually inside was maybe a mixture of four or five different substances,” he says, highlighting how stretched CDA’s resources are with an issue of such magnitude.
“We’re covering alcohol, hard drugs, under-18s, methadone, needle exchange with the Ana Liffey Drug Project, treatment and therapy and counselling too, and we’re doing that across two counties (Cavan and Monaghan). There are times when it just doesn’t add up.”
Source: Seamus Enright, anglocelt.ie, 01/09/2013
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