THE HEALTH Service Executive, the Garda, the Road Safety Authority, the Irish Prisons Service and a number of Government departments have been ordered to draw up plans to implement the State’s new National Drugs Strategy before the end of the year.
The strategy, published yesterday, makes 63 recommendations which John Curran, Minister of State with responsibility for drugs, insisted were by no means aspirational and would be implemented.
It includes a recommendation that random roadside drug-testing of motorists should be implemented as soon as is technically and legally possible.
While the strategy document notes there is as yet no reliable system of preliminary roadside testing for drugs, it says the Medical Bureau of Road Safety is keeping abreast of developments in this area.
Mr Curran said that given the strategy will run for eight years until 2016, progress would be made on implementing all 63 recommendations, including the one on random roadside drug testing. He said the Department of Transport would be reporting to him with a timeframe for implementation of this recommendation, which would probably require legislative change, before the end of the year.
Another recommendation revolves around ensuring problem drug users can access services within a timely manner by 2012. Mr Curran acknowledged the waiting times being experienced in a number of areas – especially in the midlands, east and south – need to be addressed. He said €1.1 million was now being allocated towards the development of treatment clinics in Limerick, Cork, Waterford, Drogheda, Enniscorthy and Dundalk, some of which would be operational by the end of the year.
He also announced that the HSE and the Irish Pharmacy Union have agreed to roll out needle exchange services through community pharmacies in 65 new locations. The funding for this initiative, about £750,000 over a three-year period, is being donated by the Elton John Aids Foundation.
Launching the strategy, the Taoiseach Brian Cowen referred to the fact that the first national drugs strategy which ran from 2001-2008 was primarily aimed at tackling the heroin problem in Dublin, but now drugs were a countrywide problem which had to be confronted at a time when resources were more limited. It was important, he said, “to get more bang for our buck”.
A number of community groups working with problem drug users have questioned whether the strategy can be implemented in the current economic climate.
Daithí Doolan, co-ordinator with the Citywide group, said it beggared belief that the Taoiseach now expected local drugs projects to deal with the causes and consequences of drug and alcohol addiction with less funding.
Fine Gael’s community, rural Gaeltacht affairs spokesman Michael Ring, who branded the strategy worryingly vague, also questioned if it could be implemented in the current climate. He also criticised the under-resourcing of our Customs service,saying gangland criminals can import drugs into Ireland easily – through small airports which rarely see a Customs officer, through the vastly under-patrolled coastline guarded by just one patrol boat and through all our ports “which share a single X-ray container scanner between them”.
Mr Curran stressed the Government was spending €270 million this year dealing with the drugs issue. “It is a substantial amount of money and, yes, everybody knows the economic challenges we are facing, but the real challenge next year in particular will be to make sure that we co-ordinate our services, that we maximise the effectiveness of what we are doing, that we measure the outputs . . . and that we avoid duplication,” he said.
Drugs strategy: recommendations
- Implement random roadside drug testing as soon as this is technically and legally possible
- Establish more policing fora
- Implement increased security procedures in prisons to stop drugs getting in
- Monitor the activities of "headshops"
- Expand the availability of and access to detox facilities, methadone services and needle exchange services
- Ensure that substance use policies are in place in all schools and are implemented
- Improve the delivery of the Social Personal Health Education programme in primary and post-primary schools
- Ensure compliance with the law in relation to the sale of alcohol to under-18s
- Develop selective prevention measures aimed at reducing underage and binge drinking
- Develop a framework to provide an appropriate response to the issue of drug-related intimidation in communities
- Develop a comprehensive integrated national treatment and rehabilitation service for all substance users