A policing forum in Cork is to look at the possibility of creating a graphic advertising campaign to highlight the dangers of taking synthetic drugs.
It follows last week’s incident in which a teenager died after a house party in Cork that left four others seeking hospital treatment.
Alex Ryan, aged 18, died on Saturday after taking a deadly hallucinogenic substance, N-bomb, that had been introduced at the party in the Greenmount area of Cork City last Tuesday.
Chief Superintendent Gerard Dillane yesterday told a meeting of the Cork County Joint Policing Committee (JPC) that if young people were to attend postmortems on the bodies of those who died through drugs they would think twice about consuming certain substances.
The Cork North Garda Division chief said some people may have weaknesses in their bodies which would make them more susceptible than others to the effects of drugs.
JPC chairman Cllr Frank O’Flynn (FF) secured agreement from colleagues when he suggested the committee should consider ‘shock’ advertising warnings about drugs, similar to those used for road safety and anti-smoking campaigns.
Cllr Daithi O’Donnabhain (FF) said legislation had been introduced to curb sales of drugs in so-called head shops, but with slight product changes, the substances are not classed as illegal and can be sold.
Chief Superintendent Tom Hayes (Cork West Garda Division) said head shops were well policed by gardaí. “You must also be aware it’s very easy to source drugs through the internet and they come in by post,” he said, adding that the JPC should liaise with the local drugs taskforce to come up with a strategy to combat synthetic drug use.
Source: Sean O’Riordan, Irish Examiner, 26/01/16
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