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THE DIRECTOR OF Public Health in Dublin has set up a team of experts to examine the recent increase in HIV cases among injecting drug users in the city, and to look at a likely link with the former head shop drug known as ‘Snow Blow’.
A surge in HIV cases in the capital came to light earlier this year, as TheJournal.ie reported.
The HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre has now revealed the full extent of the problem: there have been 15 cases of newly-acquired HIV infection among Dublin drug users since June 2014, and one probable case.
And according the HPSC’s latest bulletin:
A further 16 possible cases in PWID (Persons Who Inject Drugs) are currently under investigation and new cases continue to be detected.
The public health team dispatched to investigate the issue includes HIV physicians, GPs providing services for the homeless and drug users, addiction clinicians and a clinical virologist.
An investigation looking at the pattern of the disease is also under way – and the HSE and other organisations have launched an intensified awareness campaign to highlight the risks posed by unsafe injecting and unsafe sex.
Why the increase?
Experts who work with habitual drug users in Dublin believe the rise in the availability of Snow Blow is leading to an increase in the frequency of injections.
According to the HPSC, again:
Clinicians from the drug services are concerned that the increase is linked to injection of a synthetic cathinone PVP, street name Snow Blow, with consequent more frequent injecting, and unsafe sexual and needle sharing practices.
“This has mainly been seen in chaotic drug users, who report polydrug use, and are often homeless.”
Drugs like Mephadrone and MDPV are also being sold as Snow Blow in the capital – and Tony Duffin of the Any Liffey Drug Project says his team first noticed an increase in the availability of the substance in September of last year.
“In our experience at Ana Liffey, people injecting stimulants typically inject more often than those injecting heroin,” Duffin said.
As more injections take place, the risk of HIV and other blood-borne diseases increases.
According to Duffin:
This is especially true where people are injecting in unsanitary conditions, like city centre laneways.
“Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions – this is a complex problem. People injecting drugs can be hard to reach, can have a combination of problems like mental health difficulties and homelessness, and can often find it difficult to access mainstream services.
“It can be difficult to motivate people to get tested and treated, due to the chaos of their lifestyle and due to the understandable fear of being diagnosed with an illness like HIV.”
“It’s more available than what it was when the shops shut down,” one drug-user, who’s being helped by the Ana Liffey team, told TheJournal.ie last month.
When the shops shut down it was only available off of very specific people. Now it’s more of an open drug.
Asked about the frequency of his injecting, he said:
It’s actually more injecting than you’d think…. One bag of Snow Blow – I split into two bags.
New HIV cases
Amongst the 16 confirmed and probable HIV cases in Dublin detailed by the HSE, 11 are male and five are female.
The average age is 35 (ranging from 24 to 51).
“A case control study is underway to identify any association between use of Snow Blow leading to an increase in unsafe injecting practices, and at-risk sexual behaviour, and acquisition of HIV,” the HPSC bulletin said.
“The behaviours are extremely risky, as evidenced by the recent spike in HIV diagnoses among injectors,” Duffin said.
“It is essential that the response to this is complete, decisive, joined up and sustained.”
Decriminalisation
Separately, the health and justice committees of the Oireachtas will meet today to discuss the possible decriminalisation of the possession of small quantities of drugs, among other issues.
A delegation of Irish politicians travelled to Lisbon earlier this year to view first-hand the strategies put in place by the Portuguese authorities to deal with drug use.
In 2000, Portugal moved to decriminalise possession of small quantities of drugs and reports indicate that in the intervening years the country has seen drug abuse drop by half.
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This might sound cruel, but I have no sympathy whatsoever for anything anyone catches from putting a needle in their arm. This is 2015, not 1985. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knows the dangers associated with sharing needles and doing drugs.
it does sound cruel because it is cruel. not everyone in society comes from a stable, loving home with parents to guide you and teach you right from wrong. Drug addiction penetrates all levels of society, and the poor wretches I see in doorways around the city centre, certainly didn’t have the advantages that I, and probably you had in life.
I’m sorry but no, that isn’t factually accurate.
Put yourself in the position of the children of drug addicts; being around the use and abuse of intravenous drugs and drug cocktails from an early age, having it become normalised, becoming completely desensitized to it. Imagine knowing that you’ll always come second place to drug use in your parents eyes. These people exist.
Your comment is unduly harsh and somewhat ignorant.
Very silly comment considering the thousands of children born into families where prevalent drug use is the norm. Alcohol abuse. Sex abuse. These people can be extremely distorted and suffer from mental illness as a result
You have no idea how ignorant your comment has come across.
Meanwhile the other 4 million people have to move aside and became gutless apologist for self harming psycho’s.
When one of your family is stabbed with a needle you might feel differently.
The excuses made by people for these vermin is nauseating. Everyone of them should be lined up and shot.
People inject that head shop crap?! Oh god that’s grim. Just give them the heroin, for free, with clean needles.
It worked in the netherlands.
https://news.vice.com/article/only-in-the-netherlands-do-addicts-complain-about-free-government-heroin
“Everyone of them should be lined up and shot.” They’d probably like that Dave.
@Stephen, I would have had a similar view to yours in the past, until I learned more about addiction and its causes, what I learned completely changed my views on both addiction & addicts; this guy’s worth a listen to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5sOh4gKPIg
@ Dave; if we have centres where they can use it’ll be safer for them and you. It isn’t Saudi Arabia; here, in the civilised world, many of us find it distasteful to murder people we dislike or disagree with.
Dave Meagher: I was stabbed with a needle. Luckily I was fine, blood tests came out clear just after and still clear after unrelated blood tests a year later. I refused to hand over my phone and wallet and got a nasty scratch down my forearm with it.
Still not calling for anyone to be shot. Maybe with that ‘I’m all right mate, thanks’ attitude, you’re the vermin?
Well said Eoin.
Does everyone know the dangers of sharing bank notes to snort drugs ?
This makes something of a mockery of Trinity College Dublin public health lecturer Dr Bobby Smyth’s study, partially published here on the Journal recently.
http://www.thejournal.ie/trinity-headshop-study-2187724-Jun2015/
Dr Smyth claimed that the ban on head shops had led to a fall in consumption; that “the ban had worked”.
It beggars belief that people like Smyth are allowed to publish such “research” which is clearly unresearched drivel and go virtually unchallenged.
A public health lecturer and doctor unaware the Prohibition doesn’t work?
Or perhaps in it simply in his interest to perpetuate the system?
People should not be allowed to publish a study that I don’t agree with either.
It’s unresearched drivel, you halfwit.
Why is a public health lecturer, the very people consulted in relation to drug policy, allowed to publish unsubstantiated nonsense?
People are contracting HIV on the streets.
Users (the people in the know, when it comes do to it) say that it’s more available than ever.
Take your head out of the sand.
It is that kind of language which destroys your argument, toodle ooh.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have said that, but it’s incredibly frustrating to have the same circular logic thrown in your face time and time again.
I’m sorry I called you a halfwit but we’ve being doing the same thing for forty years and the same issues remain. Then, in turn, the same nonsense is wheeled out to justify perpetuating the same approach.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”
Apology accepted, the problem with your argument is legalisation is a tacit form of state and societal agreement.
Explain Portugal then. Why has drug related crime rates fallen year on year since introduction in 2010? Similarly, why have cases of HIV failed since introduction? It’s been in action for 10 years and the results are clear; extra education as a result of saving money because of decriminalisating drugs leads to falls in drug related crime and cases of HIV? How can you possibly argue that Portuguese society hasn’t benefited from forward thinking. Look what they’ve achieved in the last ten years. Now compare that to us: drug dealers get richer and richer, solicitors do as well, politicians propagate the same nonsense to say they’re “tough on crime” and the taxpayer pays time and time again. Oh, and it’s never been easier to get drugs.
It’s not an either or situation. Harm reduction plus increased enforcement seems to be the way forward in my opinion.
So….more of the same, only tougher?
@rod
The problem with your belief is it has been done and proved to not work. Is it you don’t believe the studies or just don’t care about the actual outcome?
If harsher penalties worked I would support it.
That is not what I said, the money the Portugal saves by not locking some people up is used to more aggressively target those who supply the drugs. This is not what Vin wants he wants some kind of taxpayer funded drug dole.
They chop people’s heads off for selling drugs in South-East Asia. Is SE Asia drug free? Hell, no!
Prohibition, regardless of the threat of punishment, doesn’t work.
You can’t legislate for supply and demand. You can’t control human choice.
To continue with what we’re doing is to embrace madness, encourage criminality and criminalise people who are not criminals.
Where did I say that? Seriously man, don’t put words in my mouth.
I support decriminalisation with a long term view towards the legalisation of certain drugs.
I accept that drugs such as heroin will always be used by certain members of society.
To combat this, I believe that we should have injection centres where heroin can be administered by trained professionals; where users can use in a safe environment, where they will be provided with clean heroin as opposed to heavily cut street deals.
I believe that through this we can learn more about the causes of addiction and ultimately treat it.
I believe that educating vulnerable people will steer them from the path of addiction.
Where, in any of that, are you getting “some kind of taxpayer funded drug dole”? The funding will come from the money we currently waste acing like a certain Danish king trying to command the tides.
“Would it not be better to have this sold by a reputable trader as opposed to some lowlife on the street who cares nothing for their customers other than gouging them for their money?”
This does not make a mockery of Dr Bobby Smyth’s research. His research is about usage of head shop drugs which has dropped dramatically, this article is about a few users of such drugs getting HIV. His research has nothing to do with HIV in the small population that uses these drugs. Clearly probation does work since usage has dropped dramatically. This is unrelated to a small number of users getting HIV.
The subject of the article is headshop drugs, man. How is it any better to have it being sold on the street, enriching some lowlife, as opposed to being REGULATED and sold in a shop? The problem with headships was that their products were unregulated. In fact, many of them are poison; chemicals thrown together to mimic illegal drugs for profit. Another charming by-product of the wonderful prohibition you advocate so much.
rod does not want to deal with facts
@ John Smyth;
They’re as easy to get now as they were when the headshops were around; they’re just on the street now as opposed to being sold in shops.
Which facts am I note dealing with?
You’re insinuating that I want “some taxpayer funded drug dole”. When challenged you produced a quote taken completely out of context.
You wanted them sold from reliable suppliers, chemists or some such, but who will pay most likely the taxpayer, unless you see some other funding method.
The taxpayer is currently wasting millions trying to stem the flow of drugs…..
So the taxpayer will still pay?
Think of the money the taxpayer wastes on free legal aid for minor possession cases, free legal aid for drug addicts who rob and steal to pay for their fix, paying Gardai to search every second small fry who might have a negligible amount of drugs in their possession.
Think of the time it will save in terms of the Gardai and the courts; allowing them to focus in those who commit violent crimes in our communities.
Think of the costs saved in housing habitual drug abusers in our prisons.
If addicts are provided with heroin and it is administered in a safe place by professionals you’ll no longer have drug addicts robbing citizens and tourists. You’ll break the backs of small and mid level dealers and massively disrupt the finances of the Mr Bigs.
So yes, the taxpayer will pay but the tax payer already pays for the absolute nonsense system we’re running now.
Incidentally, you said “Harm reduction plus increased enforcement seems to be the way forward in my opinion.”
Who’ll pay for this; the man in the moon, is it?
Hey John Smith,
You are wrong about Bobby Smyths Tcd report/study.
It does not anywhere in that report conclude that use of former legal highs has reduced. It reported that teenagers reporting to his clinic for treatment due to the effects of these drugs has reduced.
This could be due to lots of other factors which were well debated in the comments to that article.
Vin’s assertion that today’s report makes a mockery of Mr Smyths conclusion is spot on as mr Smyth summarised that prohibition works, The article above is fair evidence that it does not.
@rod
The harsher enforcement only works if you it is drugs that are the problem rather than the people taking them.
It is like promoting harsher enforcement of sale of ropes to reduce suicide by hanging. The ropes are not the problem.
Abuse of drugs is a symptom rather than the cause of an individuals and by extension a societies problems.
Basically someone who is injecting snowblow does not care about what happens to them by law or otherwise, it is almost a form of very long drawn out suicide. And like other groups trying to kill themselves should be helped not criminalised. As, if it is not snow blow it will be heroin, remove the heroin it will be alcohol and so on and so on ad infiniteum.
Exactly: a public health issue; not a criminal issue.
@VinHeffer89: you can’t control human choice but you can certainly influence it .
@John Smith:
Perhaps there is an element of truth to Bobby Smyth’s research.
It could be argued that since headshops stopped selling these drugs, the use of headshop drugs has dramatically declined.
There aren’t any headshop drugs anymore.
Now gangs purchase the same drugs in bulk over the dark web, and sell them to street/prison users, without regulation.
The Portuguese way is proving to be the most effective way to contain the Drug problem why can’t we do something similar here?
Because Ireland. Bleeding heart prayers first crowd, means responsibility never
its the sharing of needles that causes in infection… another daft headline….
How are people still so stupid that they can’t clean a needle or know that they need to?
absolutely hate druggies. man or woman. selfish people. rob ya blind. untrustworthy.low life.
I think thats TDs you are on about.
true . there worse. b@@serds.
The “legalise it” mob go very quite around articles like this
come on rod. big difference in weed than injecting artificial made drugs. war on drugs is america s war. dmt weed shrooms mdna all good and studies to prove it.
I’m right here.
Would it not be better to have this sold by a reputable trader as opposed to some lowlife on the street who cares nothing for their customers other than gouging them for their money?
If we had injection centres, addicts could use in a safe environment and have drugs administered by people who know exactly what they’re doing.
If we had needle exchanges, they wouldn’t be sharing needles and contracting HIV.
You have no argument, Rod_ten, Prohibition perpetuates what we’re seeing here. This is a by-product of it; can you work that out?
I have no argument, well that’s ok then, thanks.
Cop out..
So your solution is to make it easier to inject drugs, I’m sure that will lower the usage numbers. So should people be able to do whatever they want wherever they want?
They’re going to do it anyway. You can’t even control the flow of drugs in prisons as stories this week revealed. Better to have it in a safe environment. This will control the spread of HIV and other diseases. It will also give us a chance to educate and to better understand addiction.
Education is how people break the cycle; prohibition and pushing the problem further underground and into the hands of utter lowlifes perpetuates it and encourages it.
No restriction just education, got it, I must stop talking to you now because of your halfwit comment.
I apologised; what do what? A genuflection?
Great argument there Rod. Look at Portugal as a case study. They have decriminalised all drugs and it has been a major success. I think certain drugs should be fully legalised and all others decriminalised. I think if you have an argument against that you should make it and have a debate. No point in dismissing people because they have a different opinion to yourself.
it’s you who looks like the halfwit Rod. if you want to learn about the success of decriminalizing drugs read up about the success Portugal have had before making comments. their crime rate has plummeted. or you could carry on commenting on things you obviously have no clue about
There are actually doctors that believe HIV was created in a laboratory and they have put forward some strong evidence. But the news man said different so we should go with that I guess.
Glen is a paid shill for “True News”.
Who told you Jake?
I think this is called Young & Stupid sadly enough – Although I have a little sympathy on what troubles they have that drives them to it in the first place.
You sound lovely, can I’ve your number?
That just sounds inhuman, Caitlin.
Drugs are evil.
Drugs kill.
Keep drugs off the streets.
Protect our kids.
People who support legal availability of drugs are stupid.
Too stupid to argue with.
So I won’t even bother wasting my time.
Obvious troll is obvious.
Obvious druggie is obvious.
Noah is stupid, so stupid I’ll no longer read his comments as they too are obviously stupid.
Yeah because you have to be a “druggie” to care about social issues and policy.
And he says I’m too stupid to argue with…. Look at what propagates prohibition.
Irony overload.
People who take drugs are stupid.
Giving them a vote on legalization is even more stupid.
Stupid and stupider.
So can we take it that you; don’t drink tea or coffee, don’t take pharmaceutical drugs and don’t drink or smoke? as from your own statement any of these would make you stupid.
Your avatar is a pic of Ryan Gosling smoking.
If you use tobacco, alcohol or caffeine, Noah, calling other people “druggies” makes you a total hypocrite, bud.
so stupid Noah
@Noah_MacMurchada: Shut up, then.
That headline reads as though this particular drug is causing hiv…
“Heineken linked to increased teen pregnancy rate”
Stupid article
Hey laser lips, your Momma was a snow blower!!
I think its very sad what’s happening these days in the city, I was walking through town on Tuesday morning at 2:30 from Harcourt street to O’Connell street and the amount of homeless people i seen at doorways was very sad no doubt drugs are the main issue here, it was raining out and i was thinking to myself I’m going home to a warm bed and its freezing out, i feel so lucky i have great parents that done a super job with me and not everybody gets that chance in life and that’s the sad part.
@Scorpionvenomm: its a disgrace that people are in this situation . I fully agree . It is also a disgrace that people have to be subjected to the sight of their degradation . That brings us all down . Law enforcement and council should be working together to provide decent shelter for these people . However they should not be allowed to treat the city s public spaces like shit . They should be simply told they can’t be there , like they do in some American city s ( as long as they have decent shelter and support services ) … And no , this is not hiding away the problem . Everyone of us is entitled to a clean city , end of .
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Selfishness leads to stupidity… and harm for everyone.
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