TD concerned over drug misuse by children

One of the biggest problems with drug abuse is children as young as 10 and 11 taking "ordinary everyday pills", a Fine Gael TD has claimed.

Catherine Byrne (FG, Dublin South Central) said the tragic death of the 21-year-old man in Waterford "brings home to us the lack of understanding and knowledge about the misuse of drugs, even on a once-off basis".

She questioned the effectiveness of local taskforces and said there was reason to believe the spending of €200 million by outside agencies on persistent problem drug users was not working. Young children were taking tablets from medicine cabinets at home, she added.

Speaking during question time, she said it was crucial to have "alcohol and drugs awareness programmes for students in senior cycles. It's time to act on this one now. We can't wait any longer."

Minister of State with responsibility for drugs Pat Carey said however that local and regional drugs taskforces were having an increasing impact and "are far and away the most efficient mechanism of delivering services in the drugs area".

Mr Carey insisted that all of the funding and programmes were drawn down following consultation and on the basis of value for money.

"There were also excellent campaigns being driven by transition year students around the country about the danger of alcohol and drug use,because that is the lethal cocktail, the new phenomenon," he said. There was a greater range of service and a greater number of people were presenting to use the services. "It will be a long time before we will have an entirely adequate service," the Minister said, adding that progress was being made and the senior cycle school programme was being prepared.

He told Ms Byrne that the €200 million fund "represents spending by outside agencies on persistent problem drug users. The figures do not take account of mainstream services." He was focusing particularly on prevention and "the challenge is to change attitudes among problem drug users and potential users".

An awareness campaign in the media will begin early in the new year and "will focus to communicate the dangers of cocaine use, with a particular focus on the so-called recreational users in the 15-34 year age group".

Mr Carey said social network websites would be used along with billboards and bus advertising and targeted radio advertising. It would not be possible to get the national campaign going for the Christmas period, though the health promotion unit of the HSE would post banners advising of the upcoming campaign on a number of prominent websites.

However, Labour spokesman Jack Wall stressed that "it's no use the HSE saying they're going to do something in the new year". He called on the Minister to personally "make an effort even if only a verbal warning on national and local radios. That can be done before the Christmas party season kicks in. It would be of benefit".

Mr Carey said the local drugs taskforces were giving out significant levels of information about drugs and he pointed out that the Garda "will be particularly vigilant regarding the risk of drug use over the Christmas period".

He echoed the statement by the Doyle family, whose son Kevin died in Waterford, that "young people would simply say no to drugs". A lot of local radio stations were already doing extremely good work about drugs, he said.

The Minister called on "the work colleagues of people in the 20-35 year age group to look out for unusual behaviour - maybe unusual attendance or absence patterns from work".