The detritus, human and otherwise, of open drug injecting is visible across Dublin city centre on any morning. Tony Duffin, director of the Ana Liffey drugs project on Middle Abbey Street, points out the small bright green “wraps” of citric acid, small plastic, empty, bottles of saline water, syringes and burnt tin-foil, within a two-minute walk of his centre.
Citric acid and saline water are used to break down heroin while it’s heated on foil, to make it injectable.
Around the corner, on the side street The Lotts, are empty syringes, citric wraps and empty methadone bottles in doorways and down shores. There are also empty blister packs, many of them with the brand-name Lyrica. “Lyrica is becoming very common. It’s the brand for the drug Pregabalin. We think it’s coming from China,” explains Duffin. It is an anti-epileptic drug which slows brain impulses.
“There’s also the benzodiazepines. And mephadrone - an amphetamine sold as “Ice”. Users will crush them down, get them into liquid and inject them.
“While heroin users inject about four times a day people using these drugs might inject every two hours, making them much more vulnerable to the risks associated with IV drug use - blood borne viruses and abscesses would be the main ones.
“We have two users who come into Ana Liffey to have abscesses on their legs dressed. The flesh on their legs have become necrotic. When they walk maggots fall from their legs.”
Source: Kitty Holland & Enda O'Dowd, The Irish Times, 14/04/16
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