A LEADING consultant in emergency medicine has claimed the Republic is only about one quarter way through a cocaine epidemic, adding he expects 500 people to die from using the drug over the next decade.
Dr Chris Luke, who is based at the Mercy University Hospital, Cork, said he believed use of the drug in the Republic posed the “greatest risk to civil society”.
He was speaking on RTÉ news during an item prompted by the inquest into the death of of 2fm broadcaster Gerry Ryan, which last week found he had died of a heart attack after using cocaine.
Dr Luke has in the past spoken out about the dangers of drug use. He has highlighted the levels of violence and aggression he has seen in some people presenting at AE units for treatment while under the influence of cocaine.
He has also highlighted the spread of the heroin problem from its traditional base in disadvantaged Dublin areas into parts of Cork city.
Most recently Dr Luke spoke out via the media against the sale of head shop products, suggesting the death rate from consumption of the products would be higher than a swine flu epidemic. “I’m far more worried about them than I was about swine flu because anecdotally I’m hearing of two or three patients a week being seen in most emergency departments as a result of taking head shop products and the presentations are really scary,” he said in April before the products were banned.
They would “lead to far more deaths than the 24 or so we saw with swine flu”, he added at the time.
The drugs which head shops sold, he said, seemed to be displacing the consumption of cocaine and other drugs.