Drug awareness - Cocaine is not social or recreational
The Government is planning a new drug awareness campaign in the coming weeks which will focus on the dangers of cocaine in an effort to dispel the popular myth that it is a recreational or social drug.
This myth has been allowed to develop with the suggestion that it is a clean drug that is not as dangerous as heroin.
Cocaine is an addictive drug.
People may not always get addicted as quickly as they would get hooked on heroin, but it is actually more lethal, as some of the recent tragedies have shown.
The Dublin County Coroner has stated that cocaine is by far the biggest drug killer, and he cited the statistics to prove the point. During 2007 he has already conducted 47 inquests into drug deaths, and 26 of those were related to cocaine.
Thus, more than 55% of the drug deaths were cocaine-related.
It is certainly not a social drug, nor should anyone consider it recreational, because it is clearly more risky than recreational. It is a killer. Those who use cocaine are funding the evil and are, therefore, just as responsible as the drug pushers for the curse that it has become on our society.
Every effort should be made to stamp it out. The Revenue Commissioners are considering purchasing a second hi-tech X-ray scanner in order to detect the sharp rise in drug trafficking.
The first such scanner, made in China, was purchased in February, and it is being used to serve the six major ports of Dublin, Rosslare, Waterford, Cork, Drogheda, and Foynes.
More than 1,600kg of cocaine, with an estimated street value of €113 million, has been seized during 2007. This is in comparison with a total haul of 61kg in 2006.
The most frightening aspect of those statistics is the police belief that only a fraction of the overall volume of the drug being smuggled is actually detected. This makes this year’s figures all the more alarming.
In all, there were 58 seizures, but one of those — the haul at Dunlough Bay, west Cork — consisted of more than 96% of the total seized. That was the biggest cocaine seizure in the history of the State, but it was detected more by chance and the force of nature than anything else.
That fortunate find highlights the need for the most up-to-date detection techniques. Some of the other bigger seizures were found in the baggage of air passengers, and five seizures at Dublin Airport were made from so called “swallowers”, who had consumed up to a hundred cocktail-size capsules of cocaine with the aim of retrieving the drug after passing through customs.
This practice really emphasises the lie that cocaine is clean. People are using it without knowing either how it was smuggled into the country or with what it has been mixed.
In addition, as recent tragedies have confirmed, some people do not seem to know what they are doing. Now their friends and family know only too well the dangers involved.
Campaigns to improve detection and promote awareness are most welcome, because they are so urgently needed.
