The consumption of illegal drugs has peaked across the Republic and is now in decline among most age groups for most drug types, a new nationwide study has found.
The number of 25 to 34-year-olds who reported using cocaine in the past year was 2.5 per cent, one third lower than consumption levels when the National Advisory Committee on Drugs research was last carried out four years ago.
A new trend emerging from the research is the popularity of psychoactive substances; products that were sold as legal highs by headshops before they were banned.
Many of these are still available on the illegal drugs market and are now the second most commonly consumed drug type in the Republic after cannabis.
Minister of State with responsibility for the national drugs strategy Roisín Shortall said while some of the figures suggested people were trying drugs when they were young and then moving away from them, there was still a need to improve drugs prevention campaigns for the young.
She also cautioned that while the figures captured in the data for heroin use showed a user group that was not getting bigger, the numbers of users was so small that a nationwide survey of all drug consumption did not definitely capture the extent of the heroin problem.
She also believed drug treatment needed to be geared towards drug users moving to a completely drug-free life.
“It is my belief that there has been insufficient focus on this ambitious goal in the past. In short, we must prevent drug users with the opportunities to achieve a life without drugs.”
At present, many heroin users are treated with methadone which can lead to long term dependency.
Of the 5,134 people from the aged of 15 to 64 years surveyed, six per cent said they had used cannabis in the past year.
Psychoactive substances were the next most commonly used drug type, with 3.5 per cent of respondents reporting use in the past 12 months.
The next most commonly used drug was cocaine, with 1.5 per cent of those surveyed reporting using it in the previous year.
For all other drug types, the usage rates for the past year were much lower: 0.5 per cent for ecstasy and magic mushrooms, 0.3 for LSD and 0.1 per cent for heroin.
A total of 27.2 per cent of people surveyed reported using some kind of illegal drug at least once in their lifetime and seven per cent reported using an illegal drug at least once in the past year.
In Northern Ireland, usage rates were similar, with 27.2 per cent of respondents saying they had taken drugs in their lifetime and seven per cent using a drug in the past year.
When the study was first carried out in 2002/03, 5.1 per cent of respondents in the Republic reported using cannabis in the past year. This increased to 6.3 per cent by 2006/07, but has now fallen back slightly to 6 per cent.
Similarly, in 2002/03, 1.1 per cent of those surveyed reported having used cocaine in the past year, increasing to 1.7 per cent in 2006/07 and falling back to 1.5 per cent in the latest study.
Levels of heroin use have remained static in the three surveys carried out since 2002/03, with 0.1 per cent of respondents surveyed in all three reporting use of the drug over the previous year.
