The Ana Liffey Drug Project Mid-West have provided a positive response to substance abuse in the city through its ‘low threshold — harm reduction’ model since opening its doors in 2012. Limerick Post reporter Alan Jacques met with its outreach team who work with some of the city’s estimated 800 heroin users.
While the profile of heroin users around the country indicates that many become involved in drugs to cope with past traumas and hurts, a more disturbing picture has emerged on the streets of Limerick.
At the height of Limerick’s gangland feud, one young man in a disadvantaged city estate made the “conscious decision” to start using heroin as an escape from the vicious cycle of violence in his community. He said he took heroin so as to be considered unreliable and escape pressure to be involved in gangland activity.
“By using drugs, he would have been considered unreliable by these criminals and was then left alone and not bothered by the gangs. It would have been very difficult for young men in these areas to escape the feud. He thought he would probably get off heroin easily enough, but 10 years on he was still using,” Dawn Russell, Head of Services at Ana Liffey Drug Project told the Limerick Post.
The Ana Liffey Drug Project was established as Ireland’s first ‘low threshold – harm reduction’ service during the height of the drugs epidemic that swept through Dublin’s North Inner City area in the early 1980s. The response to heroin use at the time was muddled at best and for those whose lives were being destroyed by substance abuse, the organisation founded by Jesuit priest Frank Brady must have seemed a ray of light in a time of dark despair.
Since opening its doors in Limerick in May 2012, Ana Liffey has engaged with the most marginalised members of society and offered a hand of friendship to those who know little other than despair and chaos in their daily lives. The number using heroin in Limerick is estimated at about 800 and, since setting up in Limerick almost three years ago, Ana Liffey has engaged with 460 heroin users in the Mid-West, with all but about 20 of these located in the city.
Based in the Fairgreen, the group operates in Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary, among people affected by problem substance abuse, their families and the wider community. Currently engaging with around 120 drug users locally, the organisation provides a range of services including assertive outreach, needle and syringe programme, medical services and assessment for residential treatment.
The profile of drug users availing of Ana Liffey’s services nationwide is typically 70/30 in favour of men. However, in Limerick, Ana Liffey staff have noted these numbers balance out at 50/50 between the sexes.
They have also noted that drug users in Limerick report issues, seemingly unique to the city.
Where many drug addicts report violence and abuse in their past, in Limerick, people presenting to the Ana Liffey claim that this threat of violence and abuse is ongoing for them.
“Compared to other regions in the country, we get much higher reports of physical attacks in Limerick. Drug users here are facing that threat of violence every day — it’s imminent,” said Ms Russell.
Source: Alan Jacques, limerickpost.ie, 12/02/15
Safer Student Nights
eBulletin
Poll
