Heroin drought can lead to death

THE current heroin drought has significant potential to cause death and serious injury for users, a drugs agency has warned.

The Irish Needle Exchange Forum (INEF) said there were reports more people were injecting heroin because the quality of the drug was so poor it could not be smoked. As reported in the Irish Examiner last Tuesday, voluntary drug agencies and HSE experts in Dublin and Cork reported a severe heroin shortage for at least the last four weeks.

Users are turning to a range of alternatives, including cocaine, crack, benzodiazepines and former head shop drugs, posing a risk to themselves and challenges to service providers. One agency in Dublin said the price of a standard heroin bag, or what was being sold as heroin, had jumped from €20 to €50 and that the price of street methadone had also risen sharply.