Interesting editoral on RTE about heroin use in Wexford (Ireland) and the lack of attention it’s getting from the Government. Seems to me (many) politicians wait until things reach crisis point before they act, as they don’t get credit for preventing things but for solving crisis’s!

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0217/drugsfeature.html

If these people were dying at one time in one place (such as a shooting at a University) there would be a national outcry. But the information I have is that people are dying now every week from drugs overdoses all across Ireland. This, to me, is a crisis. But what Government minister has said the same thing? Not one. Even the opposition politicians don’t seem to have their finger on the extent of this disaster – and it is a disaster.

When most people think of heroin, they think of users injecting themselves. But what is happening now is that the vast majority of people taking heroin now are smoking it on a Saturday night outside pubs. Some people on a night out are having their drinks, going out for a cigarette, taking some cocaine or moving round the corner and lighting up heroin and smoking it. They think it’s only ‘recreational’ but the story which ‘Sinead’ tells in my RTÉ news report from Thursday evening shows that one fix of heroin and you can be addicted. And it’s only a matter of time before somebody suggests you get a better kick from injecting …