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PROTESTERS GATHERED IN south county Dublin today in an attempt to avoid reductions in emergency department services at Loughlinstown hospital.
The 24-hour emergency department at St Colmcille’s Hospital is due to be shuttered as part of an HSE reorganisation that has already seen the controversial closure of similar services at Roscommon hospital.
Around two hundred people gathered at St Anne’s Church in the town today before marching to the hospital, according to one person present.
Under the new plans, emergency patients will be diverted to St Vincent’s hospital in south Dublin city. However, campaigners argue that Vincent’s is already overstretched and cannot cope with the extra burden.
They also said many people come to Loughlinstown from as far away as Wexford, and closing the emergency department would leave those patients significantly further from care.
People Before Profit councillor Hugh Lewis, who attended today’s protest, said: “There’s 21,000 people go to Loughlinstown every year, and the solution the Government is proposing is to reroute them to St Vincent’s. But Vincent’s is hugely underresourced.”
He said at present, some patients are re-routed in the other direction from St Vincent’s to Loughlinstown when Vincent’s is at full capacity. The protests will continue until they see results, he added.
“We’ve seen the example in Roscommon where people have resisted the cuts, and we’ve mobilised too,” he said. “People in Portlaoise found out this week that they’ll be keeping their 24-hour status. So that makes us hopeful.”
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Wouldnt it be mad if they legalised cannabis?
All these dangerous drugs would disappear overnight.
@Colm Malone: Would not advise any teenager to take cannabis:
it can affect your memory
it makes some people feel confused, anxious or paranoid, and some experience panic attacks and hallucinations – this is more common with stronger forms of cannabis like skunk or sinsemilla
it interferes with your ability to drive safely
If you use cannabis regularly, it can make you demotivated and uninterested in other things going on in your life, such as education or work.
@Colm Malone: No they wouldn’t. The other drugs would still exist but cannabis would be easier to obtain. I’m not saying cannabis should not be legalised by the way, just the argument that the action would lead to the disappearance of others is flawed.
@Ronan Mc Namara:
So… the same symptoms as alcohol then???
Except you’re incorrect on most of them.
Cannabis does have associated risks but has been proven to…
Reduce anxiety.
Reduce inflammation and relieve pain.
Control nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy.
Kill cancer cells and slow tumor growth.
Relax tight muscles in people with multiple sclerosis.
Stimulate appetite and improve weight gain in people with cancer and AIDS.
@Niall Hollywood: why is the argument flawed? Do you think chemists would bother trying to synthesise cannabis like drugs which are more dangerous than cannabis and often are not as pleasing as cannabis anyway, when you can just grow the cannabis plants easily? If cannabis was legal there would be no market for poor alternatives that are more dangerous.
@Ronan Mc Namara: Cannabis shouldn’t be available to teenagers. It should be legalised under similar conditions as alcohol.
@Dave Harris: Dave other drugs exist in order to give the user a different experience, a different or more extreme high in the same way different types of weed do. People / young people are always going to experiment and try different things from glue to aerosol cans to thinners to these new things. There are very likely many benefits to legalising cannabis but other drugs will always exist.
@Ronan Mc Namara: Nothing can be done to challenge that list in an unregulated marketplace, keeping it illegal maintains this (however true or false you believe it to be, it is after all circumstantial). The only people that really suffer are the young poor people who are welcomed to dealing through this soft substance, take a few minor offences and move on to dealing more lucrative, life threatening substances.
@Sequoia: I agree cannabis should be legalised to take this revenue away from illegal drug dealers and channel it back to the Government. It is not called dope for nothing though and can have a detrimental effect on teenagers especially the forms of cannabis that are on sale these days with artificially high levels of hallucinogenic THC.
@Colm Malone: they wouldn’t. Not everyone who takes drugs smokes cannabis.
@Colm Malone: by that logic make easier ways to inhale laughing gas legal and freely available.
@Sequoia: Look there is no need to pretend canabis is risk free, we all had stoner friends in secondary school who struggled with low level subjects in school. Alcohol is more managable as you can drink a few glasses a night and be fully functioning in work the next day. However you are right heavy use is a problem, and because it is a problem is not a reason for us to make heroin legal, its a problem for us to combat heavy drinking. Cocaine should be legalized before weed.. as its a stimulant and we have enough legal depresants.
btw I sympathize with the family of this young teenager
@Tomaldo: it is absolutely heartbreaking that he is gone from them
I Remember a woman back in the 90s her lips used to covered in paint and she used to walk the streets with the bag of paint and every now and again she’d inhale the fumes…. it’s sad to think that she must have been carrying a lot of pain, that she was trying to escape from….. the thing is there was never a bad word from her, never begged, was homeless, she is long dead I’d say shes was only in her mid twenties then if she was alive I would have seen her , but addiction must be horrible….
@Alan Biddulph: we see people everyday, even avoid but observe from a safe distance, I was young then late teens, but there are people that stay in our memories, no one is never ever really forgotten.
That young boy tragic waste of life same as that young woman, and its a vicious cycle that goes on from generation to generation and successive goverments and all the charities don’t seem to be able to put an end to it, just seems to get worse.
@Paul O’Sullivan: have the same memories seeing these people in my teens walking the streets of Dublin. Didn’t know how to help them. I can only hope the the platform of social media will enable us all to educate ourselves on how to ‘see’ these people and maybe have more understanding. He just passed but John Prine’s “Hello in there” cuts me to the quick
So teenagers can’t be out of school for a couple of months without feeling the need to inhale nitrous oxide? There must be a more complex explanation for this.
@Billy: A cheap way to get high/a hit. Much more teenager death and use from cocaine/weed/tablets. No wounder there is a high suicide rate for teenagers.
@Billy: The article mentioned that the reason why he has done it might be that’s hard to get Cannabis these days. Of course is there an increase in such behaviour. Have a look at the alcohol statistics. We adults are just allowed to buy safer drugs.
@Ronan Mc Namara: teenager death from weed?……..really?
@Damo: If you drive while under the influence of cannabis, you’re more likely to be involved in an accident. This is one reason why drug driving, like drink driving, is illegal.
@Ronan Mc Namara: have you link to that study?
@Billy: teenage kicks.
@Ronan Mc Namara: driving under the influence of anything is a bad idea,but cop on a small bit lad, weed has never killed anyone
@Ronan Mc Namara: Where are all these 15 year old drivers you seem to think are out there? Puritans like yourself do far more harm than good, cannabis is a natural substance used by humans for thousands of years, it’s usage may even precede that of alcohol.
@James Walsh: look at the face of you 2 year old Child and say to yourself when you get to fifteen I will give you some cannabis
@Ronan Mc Namara: Would love some proof there Ronan? Seems like you’ve just made that up.
@Billy: The society thats been chosen where the foot is on the throat of the lower ends of society while they try to survive, one knock on is the kids dont get the attention they should.
We have created this…
These canisters can be lethal a good friend of mine son died just recently taking this stuff in tallaght he was just 15 years old. R. I. P Alex
Absolute scourge of a thing these canisters. Just awful.
@Marcus Massey: It’s not the canisters that are the problem though. If they are banned it’ll be something else like butane or deodorant cans then. They will just find another quick and easy way of getting high.
@biggybald: you’re not wrong. They’re all a scourge
@Marcus Massey: Everyone except you eh Massy. A coup on the horizon
In my day I just had a joint and laugh with the lads.. This kills
@Ross: Paranoid skitzo lunatic! ;)
Hippy crack, ok boomers.
@Randle McMurphy: Doomer boomers
I couldn’t care less that people are inhaling this gas as its fairly harmless. But to leave there rubbish thrown everywhere in the environment is disgusting
Seeing these little canisters scattered everywhere.
@Peter: there was a picture in the British press of all the rubbish left behind at English beaches over the weekend. Among the rubbish were 30 odd canisters of this ‘gas’ disposed of like they were sweet wrappers!
What next?
I’d be interested in taking it if it wasn’t for the lack of concrete evidence as to the mechanism of action. Amazes me that it’s an agent which has been used for so long in medical and dental settings and yet they’ve never figured out exactly how it produces its effects. At least with other drugs (assuming you can get pure varieties of them) you know exactly what’s happening in your brain to produce the effects you’re getting from them. The idea of taking an unknown agent such as this though makes it seem far more daring, definitely not for me.
@Patrick FitzGerald: it deprives your body of oxygen causing you to get light headed and feel a high as a result of that. Doesnt last more than a few seconds. Hence the huge number of canisters being disgarded.
I seen a post on YouTube on how to take it safely. It was bonkers. Totally crazy.
I apologize, I didn’t mean to sound callous or disrespectful, but I still would like to try this
This stuff was being sold legally at music festivals in the last few years exactly as per the photos shown. Silver bullets for 2 euros each, adults taking it at the stall and falling around laughing for 5 minutes then it is all over and they move on. Trouble with this stuff is there is 2 grades of the gas on the market, industrial and medical grade and I doubt it is the medical grade being sold in the silver bullets
I’m completely lost. I’ve never heard of asking for a can of nitrous oxide in my lical Spar? I’m sure to deter other idiots..sorry, young people from trying to procure this there could be some disclosure going on but wt actual f is this stuff? I am a child of the 80′s…there was deodorant canister sniffing going on at my school…is this the equivalent now? Hellllppp!!!!
@Green Lentils: you know when a mother in labour gets gas and air! That’s the gas!
Legalize marijuana.
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Haven’t been in Dublin since March and back to the office today, first step i took out of the car in the car park and there was one of these canisters.
This stuff has been around for years. I was at a music festival back in 2007 and was being offered a balloon full of the stuff to inhale.
I suspect a bigger danger, and maybe what causes problems, is you can buy the exact same cannisters except they’re full of CO2, which inhaling such a pressurised would be extremely dangerous? Just go to amazon and type in nitro oxide and see how easy the bullets are to buy…I doubt they’re just buying them on “the street”
@JC: Also look at the reviews on amazon – nobody is using them to whip cream with them!!
Nitrous Oxide was the stuff they used in the fast and furious I thought?
Gave Vin Diesel a extra bit of poke
I had an uncle who never drank, died from alcohol poisoning at 92. He cleaned the vats at bushmills.started to get sick as soon as he retired.
@flamrock: what? He retired at 65 presumably and died of alcohol poisoning nearly 30 years later – how is that connected?
@Sean: he had cirrhosis of the liver. His fourth wife sued bushmills and won.they said over an 8 hour work day he inhaled a bottle of booze., Every time he went on holidays he got sick,then they put it all together when he retired. Took him 20 years to settle.
@Ronan McNamara, The Beatles and Rolling Stones took cannabis, they did ok, didn’t they
@Tomaldo: I had a aunt that smoked 30 woodbines a day for over 70 years and died of sunstroke in California does that mean woodbines are good for you
@FlopFlipU: she got woodbine’s in california.she was persistent.
@FlopFlipU: speaking of woodbine’s.my aunt was such a bad smoker, she lit both ends .then free based the silver paper.
1. Prohibition doesn’t work.
2. No drugs are bad, people just abuse them.
3. Banning drugs leads to people consuming more and more dangerous products.
4. Portugal has seen a dramatic decrease in drug abuse since they decriminalized most recreational drugs.
5. You have no idea how many methods and ways you can get drugs and regulating them is making innocent people into criminals.
6. Most nations are aiming to legalise cannabis, magic mushrooms and other low tier drugs across the world EG: America.
7. If you think I’m wrong then you are behind the times and stuck in the dark ages.
Alcohol is a recreational drug, we use it often times weekly. We know proper balances and how to moderate ourselves.
The same can be done with cannabis, cocaine, estacy and many other drugs. IF we teach people moderation and proper dosages they can be an alternative to alcohol.
I’ll say it again. Drugs aren’t bad, only abusers are bad.
Tabula Rasa. We are lemmings.
have your say