Politics

Fianna Fáil deletes cocaine tweet that ‘did not represent party policy’

Junior member of staff blamed for messages appearing to criticise HSE campaign

Cocaine usage in the country is now back to Celtic Tiger-era levels. Photograph: iStock

Thu Aug 9 2018 - 14:27

Fianna Fáil has insisted it fully supports the HSE’s ‘harm reduction’ guidelines on cocaine use, after deleting an apparently critical tweet sent earlier today from the party’s Twitter account.

A party spokesman said: “A junior member of staff posted a tweet this morning from the Party twitter account, and the tweet did not represent party policy”.

He also said Fianna Fáil is in favour of the harm reduction guidelines released by the HSE as part of their #DoYouUseCocaine campaign.

The offending tweet, posted just after 10:00am this morning, stated “Let me get this straight. There are 1,000,000 (that’s ONE MILLION folks) on the waiting lists and the HSE are running campaigns like this? Perhaps HSE Ireland #YouAreOnCrack.”

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The tweet, along with a follow-up tweet posted by the same junior member of staff, drew large amounts of criticism before it was deleted, including from Labour Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin and his Independent colleague Lynn Ruane.

Mr Ó Ríordáin said the tweet was “disgusting”, adding “I genuinely have no words”, while Ms Ruane called the post “pathetic”.

The follow up tweet, which has also been deleted, stated: “We are not saying it’s wrong. It’s the formulaic PR look of the campaign. How much thought did the HSE put in to this campaign?”

The #DoYouUseCocaine campaign, which has prompted some criticism, is aimed at educating people on how to take powder and crack cocaine safely in order to reduce health consequences.

Dublin City Councillor Mannix Flynn, an Independent , said last month was strongly opposed to the campaign.

He said there were no “grey areas” when it came to drug use and “there isn’t such a thing as safe drug use, its not like safe sex”.

Describing the campaign as a “normalisation process” for drug taking, he said the HSE should instead be stressing the dangers of drug use, which was a criminal offence.

According to the United Nations, Ireland features in the top ten countries for per-capita use of cocaine.

While the Fianna Fáil submission to the National Drugs Strategy does not mention guidelines on safely using narcotics, it does suggest “information campaigns in schools and in media”.

Other suggestions in the submission include restoring funding for guidance counsellors in secondary schools, and education and training programs for individuals recovering from drug addiction.

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