A 56-YEAR-OLD German is believed to be the “big fish” in an international drugs gang which had been storing 80kg of cocaine in a shed in a remote village in Co Cork.

DRUG experts have expressed alarm at the first major seizure in Ireland of crystal meth, a highly addictive and destructive drug that has laid waste to many US communities.

BANNED head shop drugs are still widely available on the internet, while Customs officials have made 23 seizures already this year, it emerged yesterday.

TEENAGERS who leave school early are up to 14 times more likely to use certain drugs as their peers who stay on to do their Leaving Cert.

HEROIN is deepening its grip across the country with record numbers of new addicts outside Dublin looking for help.

HOW things have changed.

SEVERE staff cutbacks at the state’s drugs research body have had a “very serious and damaging effect”, the Government’s top drug adviser has said.

A SECOND order banning a further range of head shop drugs is due to be brought in by early autumn, the Irish Examiner understands.

A NATIONWIDE Garda crackdown on head shops will continue today after a ban on a wide range of so-called “legal highs” was announced by the Department of Health.

THE Government’s drug advisory body has recommended an entire range of synthetic cannabis chemicals sold in head shops be banned.

THE country’s top drug adviser yesterday told parents giving their children a “free gaff” was a “disaster waiting to happen” in terms of drug use.

DRUGS experts and frontline workers are set to present the Government with a detailed submission outlining concerns about shops which are selling legal forms of drugs.

PRESSURE mounted on the Government last night to roll out more rehabilitation facilities for heroin users as research showed the number of opiate takers outside Dublin had soared by 165% in the last five years.

TREATMENT programmes for heroin addicts are working, according to a detailed research project.

THE State’s leading drug adviser said he fears gains made over the past 15 years will be lost if funding cuts were forced through.

THE richest and the poorest are the heaviest users of sedatives, tranquillisers and anti-depressants, according to a national survey.

Nine per cent of adults have taken anti-depressants and 15% have used sedatives or tranquillisers, according to a study carried out by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs.

AN OFFICIAL report in Britain calling for ecstasy to be downgraded to a class B drug may be examined here by the Government’s expert body on drugs.

The vast majority of cannabis users are being supplied by family and friends, a cross-border study revealed today.

DRUGS minister John Curran said gardaí need to target the growing trend of people being supplied cocaine by family members or friends.

IN ADVANCE of feared budgetary cutbacks, the minister with responsibility for the national drugs strategy has said Government investment in drug treatment has been paying dividends.

NEARLY 60,000 people have taken cocaine within the last year — more that twice the number of people in 2003, according to a population survey published yesterday.

DRUGS strategy minister Pat Carey yesterday said he was “very concerned” at the sharp rise in cocaine use and said action was being taken.

A major study on the widespread use of drugs in Ireland will be launched today.

COCAINE is the most available illicit drug, with traces of it found in nine out of 10 pubs and clubs across the country.

DRUGS Strategy Minister Pat Carey has called for restrictions on the sale of alcohol and compulsory training for staff in off-licences.

The Americans tried to ban alcohol in the 1920s, but it gave rise to the golden era of the gangsters.

THE chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs, Dr Des Corrigan, yesterday highlighted the cocaine-related deaths of five young people.

HEROIN treatment programmes are cutting drug-related crime by half and are benefiting both addicts and wider society, according to new research.

COCAINE use is booming across the country and across all social groups with devastating impact, according to a raft of official figures.

CONCERNS over the direct link between cocaine and violence in local communities will be heightened by a major new report showing that the killer drug is destroying lives in all sections of Irish society.

More than three times as many people are now seeking help for problems with cocaine than in the late 1990s, a report revealed today.

THE owners of Wexford-based Senator Windows are in line for a multimillion euro windfall after selling the company to the Gowan Group.

POOR literacy skills are blocking Travellers’ access to drug treatment services, a new study found yesterday.

Drug treatment services should be urgently adapted to meet the needs of Travellers, who abuse drugs as much as the general population , a study found today.

EXOTIC plants, brightly coloured pills, bongs and growing kits — the shelves on the Head Shop in Dublin’s Temple Bar are packed with everything the discerning drug user could possibly want.

DRUG treatment substantially reduces drug use, drug dealing and criminal activity, according to a major study.

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.

INCLUDING cannabis in a new cautioning system would be a positive measure so long as it offered support to cannabis users, one of the country’s leading psychiatrists said yesterday.

THE vast majority of people who have taken cocaine do not progress and become regular users, according to a new report.

There are almost three times more regular cocaine users in the Republic than in the North, a survey said today.

SMOKE from cannabis is less likely to cause cancer than tobacco smoke, according to new research.

EIGHT out of 10 people who use cannabis get their drugs from friends or family, new research shows.

BUMPER opium crops in Afghanistan will result in a glut of cheap heroin and could trigger another epidemic in Ireland, drug experts warned yesterday.