'You can’t be naïve to think it is still just cocaine or ecstasy like it was before. It’s a whole new ballgame'

Ahead of Alex's anniversary Mass in Millstreet, Nicole Ryan said: 'You can’t be naïve to think it is still just cocaine or ecstasy like it was before. It’s a whole new ballgame'

18-year-old Alex Ryan from Millstreet Co Cork died in January 2016 after taking a synthetic drug called an N-bomb. 

“You can’t be naïve to think it is still just cocaine or ecstasy like it was before. It’s a whole new ballgame."

That is the advice to parents and communities from Nicole Ryan, whose brother Alex died 10 years ago after he took a deadly designer drug at a house party in Cork City.

Alex, from Millstreet Co Cork, died in January 2016 after taking an N-bomb and Nicole, now a Sinn Féin senator, has urged communities to make themselves aware of the dangers of such synthetic drugs.

In November 2016, Judge Gerard O’Brien imposed a two-year sentence, with 18 months suspended, on one man, and imposed wholly suspended two-year sentences on another man and a woman, for their parts in the supply of N-bomb.

Following an inquest into his death, Cork City coroner Philip Comyn wrote to the Department of Education calling for more drugs awareness programmes in schools.

Nicole Ryan, who since became a Sinn Féin senator, lost her brother Alex in January 2016. File picture: Moya Nolan

Nicole Ryan set up a drug awareness programme aimed at educating young people about the dangers of drugs, called Alex's Adventure, in his memory.

Alex would now be 28 years old. Ms Ryan said: “There will come a day when I will have lived longer without him than I did with him. You evolve and the grief evolves and we are at a point where there is still shaky ground sometimes. 

"But we are in a place where we can remember him fondly and it is not so much now about how he died. It is just sad that he doesn’t get to see how we have progressed and just that he isn’t here.” 

She said that synthetic drugs have evolved rapidly since Alex’s death, adding: “You are never going to get rid of synthetics because it is too evolved.” 

HHC and nitazine

Ms Ryan acknowledged the HSE’s campaigns around HHC and nitazene in recent years, but said they came when people were already becoming seriously ill as a result of their use.

She also said that there are now replacements already available on the market for HHC, a semi-synthetic version of a natural cannabinoid found in cannabis, emulating the effects of THC in cannabis plants.

“The HSE and the Department of Health are playing catch-up,” she said.

But she said it is also up to parents and communities to educate themselves about emerging trends in drug use because of the constant evolution of drugs.

You can’t be naïve to think it is still just cocaine or ecstasy like it was before. 

"It’s a whole new ballgame and there are new ways of accessing drugs as well for young people. 

"You can go on Snapchat or Instagram — it’s there at the click of a button.” 

She acknowledged that it is difficult to have information campaigns around a newly-emerging drug, saying: “There are great people who are on the streets and know exactly what [drug] is on the street but how do you feed that up in to the chain where there be funding for a campaign around that or educate people.” 

She said Alex’s anniversary Mass in St Patrick’s Church in Millstreet at 7.30pm next Friday is open to anyone who wishes to attend.