Fr McVerry’s work with homeless youth in Dublin’s inner city is highly valued and rightly so. However, he has become blinded by his righteous anger at the injustice of neglect to vulnerable and homeless people there.

Cllr Tom Doherty, Killarney, raises an important point in relation to “head” shops.

THE organiser behind the latest community protest against head shops said if people didn’t march on the stores now they could be marching behind the coffin of a victim some day.

A EUROPEAN anti-drugs campaigner has accused the Government of falsely blaming EU laws for the delay in banning head shop drugs such as mephedrone.

Experts are warning about a new liquid form of cocaine after three people were hospitalised suffering from the effects of the drug.

One of the feelgood tunes used to inspire delegates at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis contains references to illegal drug-taking, it emerged today.

Anti-drug campaigners are calling for Noel Ahern, the Junior Minister with responsibility for Ireland's drugs strategy, to be replaced.

PARTISAN campaigners occasionally make outrageous claims to bolster their case.

A tabloid newspaper report this morning claims cocaine is being snorted in Leinster House.

THE family of a young man who jumped to his death after taking magic mushrooms yesterday welcomed a Government decision to ban their possession or sale.

CANNABIS users and other small-time offenders could receive a caution rather than a criminal conviction under a radical new scheme.

The Europe Against Drugs group has called on the Government to update its drugs treatment programmes to tackle the growing cocaine use problem in Ireland.

Young Irish holiday-makers are being warned to stay away from a new form of the drug ‘ecstasy’ that is popular in European resorts.

HIS nomination for the presidency has not even been confirmed, but Green Party TD Eamon Ryan’s tentative bid for the Áras may have already gone up in smoke after he admitted to having used cannabis.

THE Government’s drugs minister yesterday rejected controversial proposals in Britain to vaccinate children against future drug addiction.

CANNABIS users in Ireland yesterday called on the Government to follow the lead of the British Government and downgrade the criminal status of the drug.

ANTI-DRUGS campaigners have described as outrageous Government plans to consider supervised injection facilities for chronic heroin addicts.

IRELAND should learn from other European countries which are successfully tackling alcohol and other substance abuse, an expert told a conference yesterday.

ANTI-DRUG campaigners and medical experts here and abroad yesterday rejected claims that ecstasy was not as dangerous as had been believed.

IRELAND has the highest levels of ecstasy and amphetamine use in western Europe, according to a UN report.