A leading addiction specialist has warned recreational drug users that they are most at risk from dangers of new synthetic mixes.
As Merchants Quay Ireland launched its annual report for last year, chief executive Tony Geoghegan described the classification of substances as soft or hard as meaningless.
Weekend drug takers face the biggest dangers from lethal concoctions such as the brown powder ecstasy-type mix which is suspected of killing two men in Cork, he warned.
"It's a real party drug and certainly people coming into our centre would use it, but they tend to be more experienced drug users and unfortunately in the general public we have this inane classification of soft drugs and hard drugs," he said.
"Therefore, people think that drugs like ecstasy and amphetamines are soft drugs or recreational drugs.
"And paradoxically, it's experimenters and recreational users that are most vulnerable because they probably know the least about drugs, the least about what the effects are like, what to expect, how to manage them, how to source them. All that.
"It really is a difficult situation."
Mr Geoghegan's warning came a day after a priest at one of the funerals of the men who died from suspected drugs poisoning in Kinsale, Co Cork described dealers as "less than human" and "purveyors of grief and doom".
Source: Ed Carty, Irish Independent, 15/09/2012
Safer Student Nights
eBulletin
Poll
