Easier to get heroin, cocaine in Ireland than other EU countries

Some 43% of Irish people think it would be easy to get cocaine within 24 hours and, perhaps more surprisingly, 28% say the same about heroin. File picture

Irish people are more likely to think it is easy to get their hands on heroin or cocaine than residents of any other country in the EU.

A Europe-wide survey also reveals that Irish people are the least likely to believe that an outright ban on the substances should continue and the most likely to say they should be regulated instead.

The findings, published by Eurobarometer, show that 43% of Irish people think it would be easy to get cocaine within 24 hours and, perhaps more surprisingly, 28% say the same about heroin. 

It puts Ireland top of the table of the 27 EU member states, far above the European average, where 27% say it's easy to get cocaine and 18% say so regarding heroin.

In addition, 48% of Irish people said that the pandemic resulted in higher use of illegal drugs in their local area, and 42% said the pandemic led to more drug problems in their local area. Again, this is significantly higher than the EU average of 30% and 29% respectively.

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“The figures, particularly in relation to cocaine, don’t surprise me one bit,” said Michael Guerin, senior addiction therapist with Cuan Mhuire Addiction Treatment Centres Ireland.

“We've been aware for some time that there has been a huge issue with cocaine abuse in Ireland, both addictively and recreationally. We thought there might be a bit of a slowdown on cocaine during the Covid-19 lockdown, because of its recreational and social nature as a drug, but it would appear to be clear that it has gotten worse."

A large majority of survey respondents support the current EU-wide ban on the sale of heroin (92%) and cocaine (89%), however, this dropped to a low of 85% and 77% respectively amongst Irish people.

Irish people were most likely to instead want regulation of cocaine (20%) and heroin (13%), compared to the EU average of 10% for cocaine and 6% for heroin.

“That does surprise me. I think that the relationships that we have currently with regulated and legalized substances like alcohol are problematic, and would indicate that the regulation of class-A drugs like heroin and cocaine wouldn't help at all,” said Mr Guerin.

“However, I would be in favour of the decriminalisation of end-users. There is a huge difference between regulation and decriminalisation, and the one thing we know for sure is that 40 years of attempting to control drug supply and drug use in Ireland through the current criminal justice regime obviously hasn't worked, by virtue of the situation we're in today."