Cocaine users are now older, better educated and more likely to be working
Department of Health
.
On Monday, the department will publish an independent evaluation of the National Drugs Strategy, which sought to treat drug use and addiction with a health-led approach.
According to the report, which was conducted by Grant Thornton, there is a changing demographic of drug users in Ireland.
The median age of those in treatment increased from 30 in 2017 to 34 years in 2024, the report said, while the proportion of all cases in paid employment increased from 14.3 per cent in 2017 to 21.8 per cent in 2024.
READ MORE
The proportion of cases who ceased education for the first time before the age of 16 decreased from 34.9 per cent in 2017 to 30.3 per cent in 2024.
In 2024, 13,295 cases were treated, the highest annual figure to date, representing a 48 per cent increase since 2017.
Cocaine surpassed opioids as the main problem drug reported by people seeking treatment, according to the review.
In terms of overall drug prevalence, the proportion of adults who used drugs within the last year has remained stable at 7.3 per cent.
The most commonly used drugs in the previous 12 months in order of prevalence were: cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, magic mushrooms and ketamine.
Males and young people aged 15-24 years were most likely to use drugs over the past year.
Higher rates of drug use were associated with being unemployed, having completed secondary level education only, being single and being Irish.
The review of the Government's strategy was largely positive, highlighting how its implementation has improved data collection, expanded harm-reduction initiatives and allowed for Ireland to contribute to international research and co-operation.
However, the report also highlights a number of challenges within the sector.
There are disparities in access to harm-reduction services, particularly in rural areas and among marginalised groups, the report said.
[
Ireland is becoming a country of moderate drinkers and voracious cocaine users
Opens in new window
]
Additionally, declining pharmacy engagement threatens the sustainability of needle exchange services, it added.
The review team made 10 recommendations to overcome these challenges and guide 'the next phase of strategic development'.
Minister of State Jennifer Murnane O'Connor, with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, said Ireland has 'made significant progress' in this area.
'I welcome the strong endorsement in the evaluation of the health-led response to drug use, including the proposed health diversion scheme for people found in possession of drugs for personal use,' she said.
Ms Murnane O'Connor said there is a need to 'move forward with new policies and better services to address the ever-changing drugs situation'.
As such, she has established a steering group to prepare a new national drugs strategy, with a deadline of the end of this year.
[
Six months ago, he started taking cocaine in a more dedicated way. Things spiralled rapidly
Opens in new window
]
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Best time to introduce alcohol health warnings is today
Sir, – In April this year, our 33-year-old daughter died as a result of alcohol addiction. The contents of Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke's letter to the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, asking her to consider pushing back on the health warning labels on alcohol products is shocking. For me the best time to introduce health warnings on alcohol products is today; the second best time was, perhaps, 33 years ago. I am aware that the introduction of health warning labels on alcohol products may not prevent alcohol becoming the most important part of someone's life, yet it might help to prevent a poor relationship with alcohol from starting. Just as speed limit signs encourage safer driving, yet not everyone obeys the speed limits. Some things in life are constant like sunrise and the harm caused by alcohol, while other things in life are temporary like storm clouds and tariffs. READ MORE Pausing the introduction of health warning labels saves no lives. – Yours, etc, DERMOT O'ROURKE, Lucan, Dublin.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
FSAI recalls spinach and mixed leaves products over listeriosis fears
Spinach and mixed leaves products produced by McCormack Family Farms are being recalled due to the detection of the bacteria listeria monocytogenes, said the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) . Recall notices will be displayed at point of sale in stores, with the below branded products being recalled: McCormack Family Farms Energise Super Mix, 100g McCormack Family Farms Irish Spinach Leaves, 100g McCormack Family Farms Irish Spinach Leaves, 200g McCormack Family Farms Irish Spinach Leaves, 250g McCormack Family Farms Mixed Leaves, 75g McCormack Family Farms Baby Leaves, 100g & 200g Tesco Mild Spinach, 350g Egan's Irish Baby Spinach, 250g Earlier this week, 141 ready-made meals produced by Ballymaguire Foods were recalled from several Irish supermarkets in connection with an 'extensive' outbreak of the rare bacterial infection listeriosis. The FSAI confirmed that one adult has died as a result of listeriosis, while nine cases of infection were identified. [ What is listeriosis and how serious is an infection? Opens in new window ] Symptoms of listeria monocytogenes infection can range from mild flu-like symptoms to gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. In rare cases, the infection can be more severe. READ MORE Some people are more vulnerable to listeriosis, including pregnant women, babies and people with weakened immune systems, including the elderly. Retailers are now requested to remove the implicated products from sale, and consumers are advised not to eat them. Further information on the recalled products, including their best-before dates, is available on the FSAI website here .
Irish Times
18 hours ago
- Irish Times
Like Katriona O'Sullivan, my childhood love of sport became a quest for weight-loss points
Katriona O'Sullivan, the Maynooth University academic and author of the bestselling memoir Poor , posted an emotional video to her Instagram recently in which she recalls a note from her second-year school report in which her PE teacher describes her as 'excellent at all sport', 'having a lot of talent' and 'capable of performing at a high level at any sport of her choosing'. She is sharing this reflection, she explains, in the context of writing about her body in her next book, Hungry. Within a year of that report card, she says, she was pregnant. After another year, she'd joined Weight Watchers, an experience which transformed her joyful experience of exercise into a commodified quest for weight-loss points, devoid of any of the pleasure – and sense of her own talent – that she used to derive from it. The specifics of O'Sullivan's personal story are her own but what she discusses here about the relationship between sport and adolescence will be recognisable to many women. The number of girls and young women who make it through puberty with their love of sports and exercise (for its own sake) intact is something that has been written about a lot recently . How many women who maintain an active participation in exercise share O'Sullivan's experience of having what was once a carefree, joyful, or even competitive endeavour become a functionalist understanding of movement as primarily for the sake of weight loss or body transformation? Whether it's the anxieties that accompany the onset of periods (worsened by the wacky obsession with compelling girls to wear white shorts and skorts on competitive teams), or the targeting of advertising and marketing that seems designed to instil in us the idea that our bodies are little but passive shells for garnering the approval or disapproval of the external world – engaging in sports and exercise in our teenage years starts to feel like a social risk. READ MORE O'Sullivan's words resonated especially for me after a week where I've had cause to reflect a lot on my relationship with sports. Last weekend, as a result of a very under-thought-out (and possibly slightly drunken) decision-making, I swam the longest distance (3.9km) on offer at the Gaelforce Great Lake swimming event on Lough Derg. Despite our creche's summer holidays and the baby-sleep-eviscerating heatwave conspiring to ensure I had almost no rest or good sleep in the days running up to the event, I put in a perfectly decent performance. There were various moments of thinking I was drowning, or believing a rescue kayak must be hovering behind me, and despite almost certainly swimming about two additional kilometres in zigzagging all over the place, I didn't get anywhere near the 1.45 time cut-off beyond which they suggested people might be removed from the water for their safety. Given the balmy conditions, this was probably an empty threat anyway. As I exited the water, a little boy put a medal over my cap-clad head, which my watching four-year-old daughter quickly snaffled for her neck. It's hard to explain the extent of the pride I felt. Having done no open water training for the swim, I am forced to conclude that this is something I might just be good at. I have passionately taken up pool swimming again since I saw Mona McSharry win her bronze in Paris last year. But when I reflect on why I left my swimming club the year I started secondary school, I remember it was about coping with being in togs at a time when I had come to regard my body as a site of big social embarrassment and shame. I know I was not alone in trading coaches to galas and goggles for long, lonely walks and compulsive bedroom sit-ups. Perhaps it is in part shared history that explains the surge of women rediscovering competitive physicality via Hyrox, the competitive fitness trend , triathlons and open-water swimming in their 30s and beyond. We are clawing back a sense of our bodies as powerful instruments with a lot left to give, in the face of a media landscape constantly telling us that our physical stock is plummeting – and that we should focus on saving ourselves with hormone health, expensive supplements and everything from naturopathy to invasive surgery. When I finished that race, I sent people post-race photographs of me and the medal thief. I cannot imagine a scenario in which I would willingly send someone photographs of myself in a swimsuit, except one in which my engagement with my body as something I do things with (instead of a thing that might look good or bad) had been swung back in the right direction. We are living through a deepening crisis about girls' exposure to online and offline messaging that is damaging to their sense of their bodies and what they are for. And so we need to make it as easy as possible for them to stay involved in activities that push back against this understanding of their bodies as objects of scrutiny they have to drag around with them. This involves giving much more space to highlighting women's achievements in sports and physical pursuits, so that young girls have some counterweight against a media landscape heaving with Kardashians, influencers and body-as-object messaging. It also involves making participation in sport varied, accessible and cheap. And it means ensuring that women's routes back into sport later in life aren't prohibitively expensive, or impossible to fit into professional or maternal lives.
