Ireland fifth for use of magic mushrooms

This State has been ranked fifth out of 12 European countries for its magic mushroom use among 15- to 24-year-olds.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) found that nearly 6 per cent of Irish 15- to 24- year-olds surveyed had used the hallucinogenic mushrooms at some point. This compared with less than 1 per cent in Lithuania and under 2 per cent in Hungary.

The Netherlands topped the table with more than 8 per cent, followed by the Czech Republic, Britain and Germany.

The data used to determine Ireland's ranking was recorded in 2002 and 2003. The possession or sale of magic mushrooms was banned here by the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, earlier this year.

More than 20 per cent of Irish students reported easy access to magic mushrooms. The EMCDDA report found that the use of magic mushrooms was fairly dormant from the late 1950s but this increased during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

"The phenomenon may be driven by a broader consumer trend for young people to actively seek out intense experiences and 'natural highs' and by an increasing interest in organic products," an EMCDDA spokeswoman said.

She said market stalls in Ireland and Britain played "a key role" in kick-starting the trend in recent years. The increase was also explained by the marketing of the drug by the Dutch "smartshops" which specialise in selling psycho-active herbal substances alongside health products.

"The internet was another contributing factor," she said and pointed to "scores of magic mushroom websites providing a multilingual marketing channel and e-commerce sales outlets offering doorstep delivery".

The study found that young people who had used other illegal drugs were more likely to try magic mushrooms than those who had never experimented. However, the unpredictable and often frightening side effects of the drug discouraged some people from becoming regular users.

"Unpredictable potency and negative effects such as nausea, panic attacks and/or lack of sociable effects may all contribute to limiting recreational use of hallucinogenic mushrooms," the report stated.

The Irish-based Europe Against Drugs (Eurad) said it was not surprised at the rate of magic mushroom use here and the group called on parents to be more vigilant.

Eurad president Gráinne Kenny said there was a benign attitude to magic mushrooms by some people "but they are very, very dangerous" .

She also warned that other drugs were being brought in to replace magic mushrooms since their ban earlier this year.

This view was supported by the study which found that there was "an emerging interest" in alternative legal types of hallucinogenic mushrooms such as fly agaric.

The news comes as an inquest resumes today in Tallaght into the death of Colm Hodkinson (33) who fell from an apartment block in Dún Laoghaire after eating magic mushrooms for what was believed to be his first time.