Ireland needs to stop stigmatising and villainising drug users, assembly hears

Sharon Lambert from the School of Applied Psychology in UCC said that stigma and shame blocks people with a substance dependence from accessing help. File picture

Not all drug use is problematic and some can even be beneficial, the first Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use has heard.

Professor Jo-Hanna Ivers, Associate Professor of Addiction at Trinity College Dublin told the Citizens’ Assembly that members of her immediate and extended family had died in addiction.