A GRAPHIC advertising campaign depicting the physical results of heroin addiction begins next Monday, writes John Maker.
The four-week campaign is organised by the Eastern Health Board and will involve posters on buses, DART trains, bus shelters and hoardings, mainly in Dublin.
Initially there will be two posters, designed by Bell Advertising. One carries a picture of a heroin addict's teeth, taken from a medical journal. The other shows the damaged leg of an addict at a Dublin treatment centre.
EHB officials plan to await public reaction to the campaign before deciding whether to introduce a third poster, understood to show parts of an addict who habitually carried drugs internally.
"We want to get the issues into people's faces and get it talked about on the street," said the EHB chairwoman, Ms Roisin Shortfall TD, who introduced the campaign yesterday.