Concern over plans to force drug addicts into rehabilitation

COMMUNITY drug projects have expressed serious concern at controversial government plans to force drugs addicts to undergo rehabilitation.

CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign, an umbrella group for local projects, said resources need to be pumped into voluntary rehabilitation programmes.

The group also called on the Government to clarify which department is going to take over the National Drugs Strategy (NDS) and the Office of the Minister for Drugs (OMD).

The strategy and the office are housed under the broken-up Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs. The Equality and Gaeltacht areas have already been transferred to other departments.

There is some concern the absence of the drugs brief — which now includes alcohol — in the stated responsibilities of any of the ministers or junior ministers suggests the Government does not consider the area a priority. In an analysis of the Programme for Government, CityWide said they had serious reservations about forced rehabilitation.

“We take a negative view of the commitment to ‘develop compulsory as well as voluntary rehabilitation programmes’,” said Daithí Doolan, coordinator of CityWide.

“Rehabilitation programmes needs to be evidence-based. CityWide would encourage the Government to ensure that the ‘voluntary’ rehabilitation programmes receive the full and adequate resources they need before scarce resources are diverted into ‘compulsory’ programmes that will have limited success.”

Mr Doolan welcomed that the programme promised to bring “renewed impetus” to the fight against drugs.

He welcomed most of the commitments in the programme, including one to “update outdated drugs awareness programmes”, which should “reflect the current attitudes and reality of recreational drug use amongst teens”.

Mr Doolan said the Government needed to clarify which department would be taking over the NDS.

There has been speculation the OMD and the NDS might move to the new Department of Children as the Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald has moved into the office of Community Affairs.

Some insiders think a more likely development is a move to the Department of Health, probably under the remit of Minister of State Roisín Shortall, who has an interest in the area.

The concern expressed with this move is the OMD might be a minor part of Ms Shortall’s brief, which is Primary Care.

Groups like CityWide have either wanted a full minister with responsibilities including drugs or a full-time junior minister.

A third possibility is a move to the Department of Justice, but that department has already been substantially increased by merging Defence and Equality into it.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Community Affairs said the OMD and the NDS remains in the department pending a final decision by the Government.