Concern surge in amphetamine use in Dublin linked to lowered cost of drug production in Afghanistan

Concerns are growing within the ranks of An Garda Síochána about a very significant increase in the consumption of amphetamines in Dublin in recent months, and that it may prove to be the start of a national trend.

Garda members working on the ground to combat drug supply have reported the increase in amphetamine consumption, especially in Dublin’s north inner city, at a time when production of the drug has ramped up in Afghanistan.

Due to the increase in supply, and new cheaper methods of producing the drug, the price of amphetamines on the streets of Dublin has fallen, with gardaí concerned that lower price is driving higher consumption and making the drug affordable to young teenagers.

In recent years, the ephedra plant has been harvested in Afghanistan and is ground down and processed to extract ephedrine, the primary precursor for the production of amphetamine. This increasingly popular method of producing the illegal stimulant replaces the need to source over-the-counter medicines from which to extract ephedrine, which is a costly and slow process.

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As ephedra grows wild in many places in Afghanistan, and can be harvested for free, its use has both increased the capacity of amphetamine production facilities in that country and has also seen the cost of production plummet.

Gardaí on the frontlines of policing the drugs trade on the streets of Dublin now believe they have begun to detect the impact of those new production trends in Afghanistan. It may take some time, however, before the trend that appears to be emerging on the streets begins to register to official drug and crime data.

“The danger is you’d have a wave of this through the inner city and then it takes a real foothold and really all the health responses are built around heroin,” said one Garda source. “We’ve seen with crack cocaine; while it probably hasn’t become as commonplace in Ireland as was feared five or 10 years ago, it’s a really big problem now in specific areas; the inner city, Tallaght, Ballymun.”

The same source said while it was clear amphetamine was now becoming a much more significant problem in Dublin – even if that may not be in evidence yet in official drug seizure date – more time was required to assess if it would grow in popularity across the country.

Another Garda source said while the cost-of-living crisis was being felt across the economy, the number of people in employment was around an all-time high which “always means the drugs trade will boom”.

“A lot of the gang feuds we saw for years are quiet now, but that doesn’t mean the drugs trade is quiet. It is as healthy as ever and once the economy is going well, we have always seen that fuelling huge demand for drugs and we’re very much seeing that now.”

Meanwhile, while double-strength Ecstasy tablets were discovered after drugs seized on the weekend of the Electric Picnic festival were tested, other higher-potency new drugs are also emerging in the Republic. Two highly potent synthetic drugs – butonitazene and etonitazene - have been found in the Republic for the first time this year.

Both drugs are opioids, meaning they are synthetically similar to heroin. However, butonitazene and etonitazene are much more potent than heroin. Butonitazene can only be purchased in the US for chemical research while etonitazene has no recognised medial purpose.

While fentanyl, which has been at the centre of a drugs overdose crisis in the US for years, is much more lethal than heroin, some warnings from authorities in the US and Canada have described butonitazene and etonitazene as significantly more dangerous than even that substance.