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).