JOE (30) from Rialto, Dublin, and his girlfriend Sally (33) each take about 15 Zimovane tablets in the morning “just to get you normal”. Zimovane is a sedative.
“You get zimos on the street for about €2 each,” says Joe.
The couple then head into the city centre, around the O’Connell Street area, to get more prescription drugs. They say they take about 90 tablets between them each day, costing about €1 or €2 per tablet.
“Your tolerance really goes up after a while,” says Sally. “We get Dalmane, Zopiclone, diazepam. They’re about a euro each.”
“Rohypnol can be about €5,” says Joe. “They are very hard to come by, or Tryptizol. That has amitriptyline, which is a tricyclic antidepressant. It’s for treating schizophrenia, so it’s very strong.”
Sitting on the Bachelor’s Walk boardwalk, in bright afternoon sunshine, Joe sounds like someone with a chemistry degree. “Ah you get to know a lot about the tablets,” he smiles. Though his voice trails away at times and his face looks red and tired, he is coherent, and Sally is alert, bright and lucid.
They say they buy the drugs from friends or they buy larger amounts from contacts, to take and also sell on to their friends.
Joe says he worked as a “mule” from the age of nine, carrying heroin from Fatima Mansions where he grew up, around the south inner city.
“I’d stand on a table and they’d strap parcels of hash and gear to me. They’d buy me brand new bikes and pay me £50. Sure when you’re nine and you have £50 you’re rich.”
He started smoking heroin when he was 13 and injecting when he was 15. “I’m off it now. I did a detox and I’m on 90ml of methadone a day. But the tablets are the heaviest thing of all.”
Though he says he does not sell drugs, he later says he “dabbles” in selling heroin, and it is easy to make money selling prescription drugs.
“You can get them from the clinic with your methadone. Or there are doctors who will write you a script for whatever you want. You can buy them over the counter in Spain. If you get a box of 60 tablets for about €20 and you sell them for €2 each, that’s €100 profit.” Most can also be bought online “and delivered right to your door by a courier”.
Asked what it feels like to take these drugs, Sally describes “a floaty kind of buzz”. With some, says Joe, flopping his trunk down over his lap and hanging his arms to the ground, “you’d be like that. I don’t know. It’s a great feeling. You’re just gone.
“Heroin is bad news. They’re mixing it with all sorts, mixing it with Panadol.”
Once he and Sally have their tablets, they go home. “We just goof off at home, buy a bit of hash.” If they don’t get enough for the morning, they’ll be suffering withdrawals.
“I’d be shaking, my mind would be jumbling,” says Joe. He hopes to do a “benzo [benzodiazepine] detox” .
“I’d like to do a course, a motoring course or something. I don’t want to be doing this all my life. Hopefully we’ll get a benzo detox in a few weeks, but they’re very hard to get.”
