Crystal meth a 'real worry' for Ireland, Citizens’ Assembly hears

Paul Reid, Chair of the Citizens Assembly, and Secretary of the assembly Cathal O Regan listen to the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's video address at the inaugral meeting of the Citizens Assembly on drugs use in Malahide. Picture: Maxwell Photography

Crystal meth, or methamphetamine, is a drug Ireland should be very concerned about for the future, the first meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use heard 

Paul Griffiths, European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), which is monitoring more than 600 substances, said that new and synthetic drugs have fundamentally changed the face of drug use, from the plant-based narcotics that dominated before ecstasy or MDMA became widely used in the 1980s.