Business leaders in Portlaoise are worried that regular reports of heroin abuse in the town will eventually have a negative effect on the local economy.
For several months reports of a heroin problem in the town have been appearing in local and national media and even on Sky News in Britain.
Judge Mary Martin made headlines in March when she warned in Portlaoise District Court of drug "anarchy" in the town if support services were not put in place.
It is estimated that about 50 people in the town have used heroin at some stage, but the number of addicts is closer to 20.
Drug problems are associated with a rise in crime, but Portlaoise Chamber of Commerce pointed out that the town was twice rejected for closed circuit television by the Department of Justice because it did not have enough crime.
Ms Margaret Ryan, chamber chief executive, said there was obviously something wrong when a town was labelled with a drug problem, yet was refused CCTV because of its low crime levels.
She said Portlaoise should get CCTV as a matter of course because the town had two prisons.
If the negative reports continued, businesses wanted to see statistics which clearly proved the problem existed on such a scale.
Local businesses had not seen a dramatic rise in crime, Ms Ryan said, and if the problem was as great as being reported, this would have happened.
She said there had been a small increase in shoplifting in recent months, but this was replicated throughout the State and could not be directly related to drug abuse.
"We are no worse than anywhere else in the country but perhaps there is so much interest because the problem came to us later than the greater Dublin area," she said.
Garda Supt Noel McCarthy agreed that the town was not worse or better than other towns and said heroin had reached many similar-sized towns in the State.
While he was reluctant to say that the heroin problem was under control, he said it was going in the right direction.
When heroin was seized in the area, it was in quantities worth about £1,000, which did not indicate that the dealers were major suppliers.
Some of the major offenders were not in the area now, he said, and the problem seemed to be settling down.
The town was not recording any major increase in crimes associated with drugs, Supt McCarthy said, and while crime was marginally up this year, that could be explained by a change in the way figures were compiled.
The majority of heroin addicts in Portlaoise are either on rehabilitation programmes or on the waiting list for such programmes.
According to the Midland Health Board (MHB), nine people are attending the opiate service in Portlaoise and another nine are on the waiting list.
Pharmacists in Portlaoise have been very reluctant to dispense methadone due to the nature of the service but the MHB is now working with two pharmacists on this.
The health board is also looking at the possibility of setting up a needle exchange programme and has called for more funding to develop its drug treatment services.
While a psychiatrist with a special interest in substance misuse will be appointed to the midlands in July, funding is needed to provide accommodation for the psychiatrist, a pharmacist and other team members.