Government has ‘foot off pedal’ in fight against drugs

A SECOND member of the State’s National Drugs Strategy Team (NDST) has criticised the Government’s poor response to the problem of illegal drugs.

Dr Joe Barry, medical advisor to the NDST, said the Government had taken “its foot off the pedal” in combating illegal drugs.

Dr Barry, a public health specialist based in Trinity College Dublin, said community drugs representative Fergus McCabe was right in the criticisms he made of the Government. Mr McCabe resigned from the NDST last month in protest at what he said was the failure of the Government to implement the National Drugs Strategy (NDS).

“I can see why exactly Fergus pulled out. It is frustrating,” said Dr Barry. “There has been a hold-up. Things are slow. That’s what Fergus was complaining about and he’s right.

“On lots of fronts I think the foot has come off the pedal. Meanwhile, a high percentage of the population is using illicit drugs and alcohol.”

Dr Barry, who is also a member of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs and the Task Force on Alcohol, said the input from the health service had dropped significantly.

“From the early-to-mid 1990s and towards the end of the decade, there were big increases in the amount of money in the health service response year on year. That has slowed down considerably.

“There is also a ceiling on numbers. It’s actually quite difficult to get people employed. Cocaine obviously has come on the scene in a way it wasn’t before and that requires a different response.”

He said rehabilitation had been made a ‘fifth pillar’ of the NDS following a mid-term review last year.

“Progress in that actually happening is quite slow,” he said.

Dr Barry said some 7,500-8,000 heroin addicts were now on methadone, a legal substitute drug.