We cannot be complacent about abuse

Last week, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime published figures suggesting that Irish people were the biggest abusers of amphetamines in Europe, consuming more than five times as much as most other European countries.

The same survey found that people in this country were second only to Australia in the level of abuse of ecstasy, among the 27 countries surveyed.

The National Advisory Committee on Drugs in Ireland published the results of an in-depth survey yesterday that brought the findings of the UN Survey into question.

This survey, which was conducted on guidelines recommended by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, found that the level of amphetamine and ecstasy abuse was not as great as suggested in the UN research.

Using the same guidelines as similar studies in other European countries, the latest survey would seem to be more reliable in making overall comparisons.

However, people should not make the mistake of underestimating its implications just because our drug problems do not look as bad as the findings in the UN survey.

This country ranks third of the ten countries surveyed in relation to the abuse of ecstasy. This clearly represents a significant drug problem that needs to be tackled without delay.