Addiction to the drug is changing. In Dublin, methadone programmes have created a generation of older users who may never get clean. Outside the capital, heroin use is rampant. And the closure of head shops means a new wave of young ‘polydrug’ users must now get their fix on the street.
Ireland has an estimated 20,000 or so heroin users, about 15,000 of them in Dublin. The signs of heroin addiction – drug dealing, drug taking, begging and antisocial behaviour – are obvious to any of us. But the ways heroin is used, and the profile of those using it, are less visible, and have changed dramatically in recent years.
In Dublin, drug-treatment centres are faced with a third generation of users. A trend described by drug-treatment workers as the greying of methadone will see the heroin substitute become a medicine dispensed into old age.
Young addicts in the capital are diversifying their intake of drugs. Heroin is just one of a cocktail that many users take, creating a polydrug dependence that is increasingly difficult to address.
Source: Una Mullalley, Irish Times, 14/05/2011
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