The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has urged communities not to resist the setting up of drug treatment centres in their areas.
He was speaking in Dublin at the publication yesterday of a new multi-million pound National Drugs Strategy which will deliver more treatment places for heroin addicts, step up Garda targeting of drug dealers and establish new regional drugs task forces.
The ambitious seven-year strategy targets the reduction of drug supply, prevention strategies, treatment and research and sets out 100 actions for Government departments and State agencies.
Mr Ahern said communities remained at the heart of any serious effort to tackle drugs. The siting of treatment facilities in communities had been contentious in the past.
While he understood communities' fears, facilities where the clientele were locals had most community support. In areas where the clientele were not local there were more objections.
"The resolution is to have more centres dealing with local clientele so they don't feel overlumbered," he added.
The setting up of 11 Regional Drugs Task Forces in health board areas by the end of this year is one of the key proposals in the new strategy.
These will be in addition to 14 Local Drugs Task Forces set up in the late 1990s, 13 in heroin blighted parts of Dublin and one in Cork. The task forces, with members from community and voluntary groups and State agencies, provide a range of local anti-drugs programmes.
Mr Eoin Ryan, the Minister of State with special responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, said there was an emerging problem of ecstasy and cannabis use and underage drinking outside Dublin. Through the new regional structures, problem areas could be identified and appropriate actions taken, he said.
Mr Ryan said heroin abuse remained almost exclusively a Dublin problem, with current estimates of 13,500 heroin users. Street prices for heroin have collapsed throughout Europe and a "wrap" or single portion cost £20 today, compared to £80 in the past, he said.
"In certain areas Local Drugs Task Forces will tell you it's improved but there is still a lot of heroin around because it's so cheap," he said. "There doesn't seem to be the same abuse of injecting heroin that there was before. If the Local Drugs Task Forces hadn't been there I don't know what we'd be like."
Mr Ryan said there was "no magic solution" to tackling drug abuse and social disadvantage had to be addressed as well. "Foundations are now solidly laid and we have entered the next stage of the drugs strategy with a clear focus on what needs to be done," he added.
The new strategy follows a lengthy public consultation and review of existing drugs policy and will involve ongoing work by a variety of agencies, Government departments and community groups.
It builds on an existing strategy, although it is the first time that a single policy framework has been devised and responsibilities clearly allocated.
Community drugs workers at yesterday's launch generally welcomed the strategy. However, Mr Tony Geoghegan from the Merchant's Quay Project, which runs a crisis centre for active drug users in Dublin, was critical of its failure to commit itself to harm reduction measures for active drug users.
These include consumption rooms which are safe environments for heroin users to administer drugs and providing heroin on prescription.
The strategy states that it does not consider the introduction of such experimental harm reduction measures to be warranted at the moment. However, it says the situation should be kept under review and the results of research monitored.
Ms Anna Quigley, from the Citywide Drugs Crisis Campaign, said it was crucial for the Government to support communities to play their role in carrying out the strategy's aims.