Experts want changes in prison drugs policy

The Government should continuously monitor the effectiveness of heroin injecting rooms for drug-users overseas and establish needle-exchange programmes in Irish prisons, its official drug advisory group has said.

The National Advisory Committee on Drugs has also warned that cocaine-users who share implements to snort the drug are running a real risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis.

On the possibility of injecting rooms being introduced in the State, Mr Noel Ahern TD, the Minister of State with responsibility for the National Drug Strategy, said they remained an option and would be kept under review.

"Even if the Government wanted to introduce a pilot scheme we'd have to change the law to allow it.

"Last year when there were media reports that I was in Germany looking at them the UN's International Narcotic Control Board very quickly voiced objections and told us that having such consumption rooms, even pilot ones, was contrary to international treaties we'd signed up to.

"But there are a few pilot projects in other European countries and they've managed to get over the legal difficulties."

Mr Ahern was speaking at the publication of the NACD's new report on drug-related harm reduction. The report recommends that needle exchange programmes should be "significantly expanded" all over the country and should operate outside normal working hours and at weekends.

At present many needle exchanges are concentrated in the east and open during regular office hours, some for only part of each week.

Dr Des Corrigan, chairman of the NACD, said: "We have to face the fact that if somebody is addicted to heroin they have a craving to keep using the drug on a regular basis.

"When that craving arrives and they need a turn-on they are not going to wait until the needle exchange opens the next day.

"They are going to want a way of injecting that drug immediately, and this is where we need to expand access to the services," Dr Corrigan said.

The report concluded that the risk of infection from diseases like HIV is worse where harm reduction services are limited, poor or unavailable.

Young people just beginning to inject drugs were most likely to share drug-injecting equipment, it said.

Dr Corrigan said the NACD would also be concerned at the manner in which cocaine-users were sharing implements to snort the drug.

Cocaine use damaged blood vessels in the nose, and diseases could be picked up from these vessels and passed to others sharing a "snorter".

The NACD said the sharing of drug paraphernalia, such as spoons used to cook drugs, or even belts used as tourniquets to emphasise their veins, could result in the user contracting diseases.

Mr Gerard Moore, who was part of the Dublin City University research group that compiled the report on behalf of the NACD, said much work needed to be done to reduce the harmful effect of drug abuse in Irish prisons.

He said needle exchanges should be established in jails. Currently syringes are smuggled into prisons and are commonly shared and used a significant number of times.

"In a national sample of Irish prisoners 52 per cent reported a history of opiate use, and 43 per cent reported a history of injecting drugs," he said.