Cork's heroin problem: How did we get here?

Cork's Northside was first identified as a heroin blackspot by the Ministerial Task Force in 1996. File picture: Eddie O'Hare

This week in Cork District Court there was the case of a mother who was in front of the judge charged with neglect, relating to an incident in 2017 where gardaí came across her and her partner injecting heroin in a cabin at the back of a derelict house in front of her three-year-old son. 

How did we get to this? This type of case is something we’ve heard about in other cities like Dublin, Liverpool and Manchester but not Cork. How did Cork get to this point?

Drug use in Ireland was not a serious issue up until 1979/1980 when the heroin epidemic hit Dublin. Before that, the Irish drug scene was relatively non-existent. Until then, Ireland's substance use problems centred around alcohol and benzodiazepine use and treatment tended to be in the form of psychiatric care.

In the late 1970s, new supply routes to the UK from Iran and Pakistan led to a heroin epidemic in cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and subsequently Dublin. The outbreak of heroin use in these cities was mainly among unemployed men aged 18-25 from deprived urban neighbourhoods. 

The heroin originated in Afghanistan and passed through Iran and Pakistan and along the migration route and into the UK. Afghan heroin was brown in colour and needed to be mixed with citric acid and water before being heated to make it soluble enough for injecting. 

In the beginning, many drug users smoked the heroin on tin foil heated by a flame, known as ‘chasing the dragon’. This method was seen as a ‘painless’ and ‘non-addictive’ method of consumption, but ultimately led to chronic injecting drug use. 

The rise of heroin use in Dublin is reflected in arrest rates. There were five arrests in Dublin for heroin possession in 1979 but that rose to 177 in 1981. 

In Mountjoy Prison, research conducted by Paul O’Mahony in 1997 showed the prison was populated mainly by young heroin users from just six small areas in Dublin.

Recession and heroin in Cork 

Cork did not experience the heroin epidemic like Dublin and stayed relatively heroin-free up until the mid-2000s. In 1996 the Ministerial Task Force on Measures to Reduce the Harms of Drugs cited heroin use as being ‘most acute in 11 areas − 10 in Greater Dublin and in North Cork City’. 

This led to the founding of the 10 Local Drugs Task Forces and 14 Regional Drugs Task Forces including Cork Local Drugs Task Force and Southern Region Local Drugs Task Force as the State became aware that reducing drug use cannot be achieved without addressing poverty and social exclusion. 

However, heroin use in Cork remained confined to a handful of people up until the mid-2000s.

The escalation in heroin use in Cork during the mid-2000s is explained by one participant in my own research with Dr James Windle who said "drug use around here became really bad around the end of the Celtic Tiger. 

The recession and heroin hit Cork around the same time. We didn't have any opportunities, the work was gone, for those of us who didn't have the money to emigrate, all we had was heroin and tablets.

In Cork, heroin use numbers peaked in 2015 but much of the media, especially radio talk shows, continue to focus on Cork’s ‘growing heroin problem’, calling for an approach of ‘zero tolerance to drug use’. 

It’s not that the heroin problem is growing, it’s just becoming more visible in the context of an unprecedented homeless and rental crisis which also tells us that any policy to combat drug use that does not address inequality is of little use. 

People use heroin as a means of self-medication, a coping mechanism in the context of psychological trauma and structural violence. There is now significant research on the relationship between psychological trauma, mental health and drug use and policy experts are calling for people to see chronic drug use as a mental health issue. 

Responding to people who are struggling in this way allows for recovery and healthy functioning families, we cannot continue to blame those in chronic addiction for their situations, research tells us that very often it is not a choice but a necessity.

What can we do?

While addressing inequality is the best option, there are certain measures we can implement in the interim to help prevent cases like the one in Cork this week from happening again. 

Middlesbrough recently ran a successful pilot program where chronic heroin users were giving supervised diamorphine injections. This eliminates the need to commit crime, the prospect of overdoses or disease transmission and crucially, means that heroin users do not have to buy drugs and use them in back alleys or derelict squats. 

As the clinical lead Daniel Ahmed said: "This is not a soft option, it's a smart option’.

Criminologist, James Leonard, says the heroin problem in Cork is becoming more visible in the context of an unprecedented homeless and rental crisis. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Also, if a parent in active heroin addiction requests Tusla to take her child into care because her addiction is out of control, then Tusla needs to take responsibility for the child. 

The problem is there are social workers at Tusla with sometimes over 100 cases on their books at any one time. 

For whatever the background reasons, this little boy’s mother was struggling to care for him and the State failed to intervene when help was requested.

James Leonard is a criminologist doing his PhD at the Department of Sociology and Criminology in UCC, works at Cork Education and Training Board and has his own podcast 'The Two Norries Podcast'.