Children selling cocaine in some suburbs-expert

Children as young as 14 are selling cocaine to their friends in some Dublin suburbs and an 11-year-old boy is dealing cannabis in the Dublin 12 area, a prominent community drug treatment worker said yesterday.

Susan Collins, co-ordinator of the newly launched Croí Nua, the State's only treatment facility for crack cocaine and cocaine addicts, warned that crack cocaine had already gained a foothold in Dublin 12.

Some addicts in the area presenting for treatment had developed chronic €700 per day crack cocaine addictions, she said.

"People have come to us that owed so much money to their dealer that their houses were under threat. One person owed around €12,000. Their family was willing to pay it as long as the person addressed their addiction. But you also hear of people having to get loans from credit unions to pay their dealers.

"People seem to be able to stop using cocaine a lot easier than they can stop using crack. They are presenting with crack cocaine issues like losing tonnes of weight within three weeks, weight falling off them because they are constantly using it.

"They are in debt to the dealers and it's then all about trying to hang on to their dignity, not having to prostitute to get the money, or go stealing."

Ms Collins, the chairwoman of Dublin's CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign - a specialist support agency funded by the Government - was speaking to The Irish Times in the Mansion House, Dublin, after the official launch yesterday of the Croí Nua treatment project. The Crumlin initiative aims to help addicts beat their cocaine and crack cocaine addiction by offering detoxification and encouraging them to challenge the reasons for their drug dependency.

It is run by the Addiction Response Crumlin treatment facility and has been established because of the growing number of users presenting to Addiction Response for cocaine and crack cocaine addictions. The group has assisted 14 crack cocaine addicts in the last two years.

Ms Collins said the wider community needed to respond immediately if Ireland was to avoid a more widespread US-style crack cocaine problem.

Moreover, very young children were now becoming involved in the illicit drugs trade.

"There's a young group of children who are dealing to each other in the Dublin 12 area, 14 and 15-year-olds. We know of an 11-year-old who is dealing hash on his push bike. Although they are isolated incidents, they bring in other kids."

While funding had been made available under the National Drug Strategy for the prevention of drug dependency among under-18s, once such children developed a drug problem their families had few, if any, treatment options.

A Garda spokesman said that while it was difficult to comment on anecdotal evidence they were not aware of the specific cases raised by Ms Collins.

The Minister of State with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, Noel Ahern, said cocaine use was a much more serious issue at present than crack cocaine use.

"In recent years, because the price has gone down, there's a lot of it out there. It has got into some of the working class or disadvantaged communities. It's very hard to get figures about crack cocaine because generally you don't [encounter] crack, you get cocaine," he said.

Many people providing drug treatment services in the voluntary and statutory sector had been trained to deal with heroin addiction. Funds had already been made available under the drugs strategy to "up-skill" these service providers to equip them better to deal with cocaine-addicted clients. he said.