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THE HEALTH RESEARCH Board recently reported the number of deaths caused by drugs in Ireland has risen by 51 per cent over a six-year period.
Research has shown that 638 people died in 2009, compared with 422 in 2004. Alcohol was accountable for 40 per cent of all poisoning deaths during the six-year period, while heroin caused 21 per cent.
In 2001, in response to the continuing rise of fatal overdoses and HIV, Portugal introduced a new policy which it decriminalised the use and possession of illicit street drugs. Since the new drugs policy was introduced the overdose rates and HIV rates have reduced and this has reduced the amount of addicts being sent to prison and increased the number accessing treatment.
Sending an addict to prison does not help the individual or society. They have a criminal conviction and when they are released many find it hard to find employment and move on due to their conviction. For many it’s a revolving door in and out of prison. Recently, the Law Reform Commission said the minimum sentence for drugs offences has led to an increase in the prison population without any major effect on the criminals at the top of the illegal drugs trade.
In Portugal, instead of being sent to prison, people are being provided with help from treatment agencies and are learning to control their drug use. Removing the criminalisation of personal drug use and treating individuals more humanely has helped to reintegrate these individuals back into society.
Treating an addict humanely engages the person with professional services, so that a rapport is built up between the worker and the person. The addict is a person, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter. Many people only see the chaotic behaviour of the individual; no one ever sees the life they have lived beforehand. The addiction is the pressing issue which is visible for people to see, and it’s easy for anyone to make a judgement; to call them junkies.
In the past 15 years I have worked with a variety of people from a number of socio-economic backgrounds. These people who use substances have experiences of trauma, abuse, violence and physical injuries that damaged their lives and led to the use of drugs to numb the pain.
Needle exchanges are services that still challenge people. These services are confidential, and provide a safe place where drug users can talk to a professional. Needle exchange services have been proven to reduce the transmission of HIV and Hep C – so much so that since needle exchanges have been introduced into Ireland the HIV rate amongst injecting drug users has reduced every year. People are shown how to inject safely and are provided with new and correct equipment.
The services work with the most marginalised individuals who because of their addiction lead chaotic lives. These individuals, who are at risk of overdose and death, are shown how to reduce the risk. The services also have links with GPs and nurses providing much-needed health care, and they open doors to treatment and rehabilitation services.
At the time of austerity measures we have to ensure that drug services are maintained and not reduced. In Greece since austerity measures were introduced, drug services were reduced and this has resulted in a significant increase of 25 per cent in the HIV rate amongst injecting drug users.
Addicts need to treated humanely and with dignity. No one sets out in life to be an addict, or chooses this path as a lifestyle.
Tim Bingham is the co-ordinator of the Irish Needle Exchange Forum. To learn more about the forum, visit inef.ie.
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I agree with most of that. It makes no sense to me sending someone to prison simply for using drugs. Its not like they can get clean in prison.
My brother was sent to saint Patrick’s prison when was 16 years was drug free when he went in and came out a heroin addict he is now 48 years old He was never treated with respect
This government has a 3 pronged approach to everything:
1. Increase the price or tax
2.Ban it.
3.Increase the penalty for doing it.
People with addictions deserve respect and compassion like everybody else. We should be looking at new innovative ideas that other countries use and try out new methods. Our present system of dealing with this horrible problem never worked and never will work.
Nice stats at the beginning. What are the stats for people who successfully recover from addiction and those that fall back to their old habits. Perhaps then we can make a balanced comment.
No. Don’t treat them with compassion. They aren’t human beings like all the other normal people.
Ok… sarcasm aside. I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I’ve seen a lot of formerly violent and volatile people turn into very sensitive, gentle and intuitively intelligent people, given the right kind of care and understanding (which is not apart from challenge – in fact it needs to be complimented with that for either to work).
Thank God that at least in Ireland, addicts facing criminal charges often have a chance at treatment as a way to commute a sentence. In America, they’ll feck you in jail before you know what’s going on. Maybe it’s far from utopia here, but relatively speaking, I don’t think the system in Ireland is *that* lacking in compassion. I suppose when it comes to court cases, it depends on individual judges, and how they look on drug problems and potential for recovery.
It Also depends on the crime that was committed .
There are some very successful drug recovery programmes
and of course it all boils down to the determination of the
participants .Fair play to you for over coming your double addiction:)
I mean that sincerely.
thanks :)
I agree, I think it does depend on the seriousness of the crime.
I’m not saying accountability should go out the window (just that the help and opportunity should be there – even alongside incarceration if that has to be a part of it) – recovery is a process of taking responsibility more than anything else after all.
http://m.caron.org/current-statistics.html about 50-90% apparently but there is a lot of factors to be taken into account. Trying to get people off substance addiction in the first place should be the priority not whether it’s worth doing because they might relapse. Taking a negative, value for money attitude from the outset isn’t exactly the sort of thing that is going to help an addict kick the habit. That and the fact that each addict is unique in their makeup means that it is virtually impossible to tell who will relapse and who won’t.
We should treat bankers with compassion too…
The old way is simply not working. Why not try this? Portugals experience says it will work and if it fails at least we can then explore other options.
Oh and we should also inject bankers with compassion to counter the bs flowing in their.veins.
We are treating bankers with compassion!!!!!
Any stats on the victims of crimes who help pay for junkies heroin?
” Removing the criminalisation of personal drug use and treating individuals more humanely has helped to reintegrate these individuals back into society.”
I agree with this to a point , we must remember that not all drug users commit criminal acts to maintain their habit .There only ‘crime’ is to use illegal drugs .This issue is already being addressed in the ”drugs” courts in Dublin anyway , and is some what successful.
However there are a number of illegal drug users ( i do not know the figures) who will commit crimes such as muggings, shop lifting,and burglaries etc.. to come up with cash to pay for their habit . Unfortunately , when innocent victims of these crimes are brought into the equation ,and they suffer as a result , then it is harder for people to be as sympathetic to the drug user.
Prohibition of anything in high demand will never work. History shows this
Kudos to people like Tim too, for doing his work and writing this. What he says about seeing the humanity in addicts apart from the immediate problem, which is a pit of selfishness and destruction is easy to say, and is necessary, but is nevertheless a serious challenge.
Is the help you get ”real” or is it only given seriously when
they see you are serious yourself ? I am genuinely interested .
I hate drugs with a passion . I have seen what they do to lives
and to bodies …
I have seen how difficult the challenge is for people .I always
believed and still do believe that drug addicts are just as much
the victim of crime as any body else.
Well, with me it wasn’t a case of criminal charges, though it was a serious problem. I can’t say much more about it here, because it involves more than myself.
But there were people in treatment with me who seemed to have been given treatment as an option by the courts, and I got the impression that jail would have been the alternative. Yeah, there was a vetting process of a few weeks (involving drug tests and more) in the centre I was at, and I saw people being grilled during those a bit to see how serious they were about it, or whether they were looking for a way to prolong time spent using, or some sort of way to just go through treatment to avoid prison.
As for whether it’s ‘real’, I found that though there were a few things I would criticize about where I went for treatment, it was mostly very good, and it worked for me and a few other people I know. Most of my criticisms are generally about the 12-step model more than the centre, and to be fair that isn’t an impediment to everyone (it wasn’t for me, but some people are too deeply bothered by it to engage, and I understand why that is – the notion of a higher power can be too loaded with superstition for some people.
My main criticism is there aren’t many options for people who want a secular/non-religious approach – the Minnesota approach, and the disease model kinda has the monopoly on it, when there are other things out there too).
Thank you Gearoid for this .I am so glad for you and that this
programme has been a success for you and others.
€20m a year of scarce tax payers money is spent on methadone for druggies
rather than endlessly pouring money down the necks of these people, it would be better invested in detox programmes.
Also legal aid shouldn’t be available to anyone with more than 2 convictions
Well, I read in the paper yesterday that the government wants to “crack down” on prostitution, specifically the men who pay for sexual favours, by increasing the penalties. If that’s indicative of how this government tackles social problems then I don’t think there is much hope of decriminalising drug use. I fully support jailing drug dealers, I don’t support jailing drug addicts. These people are sick and need our help. Instead we ruin their lives further by putting an invisible mark on them so employers at home and abroad know to discriminate against them; that is of course giving them a criminal record. This means even if they get their act together we can’t let them re-enter our society on an equal footing.
I have had lots of drinks on many occasions Jeroen Bos, but i never went out and robbed a person with a needle, of shop lifted to feed my habit or broke into an old persons house and stole what they worked all their lives for !!! reopen spike island and throw all herion addicts in and let them suffer for their actions , nobody makes them take their first hit so screw them !!!!!!!!!!
never had a drink in your life I bet ;-)
Firstly, I find the following quote from the article highly dubious:
“In Greece since austerity measures were introduced, drug services were reduced and this has resulted in a significant increase of 25 per cent in the HIV rate amongst injecting drug users.”
Austerity in Greece is so recent an occurance that to extrapolate such a causation is at the very least premature.
Secondly, its well and good talking about decriminalising illicit drugs and having needle exchanges etc cutting HIV etc in users. However, while we should look to help those in the grip of drugs, we cannot neglect the criminality and moral neglect committed by addicts, including a lot of violent crime, giving birth to drug addicted children, and ‘raising’ them in environments that doesn’t give them a good chance in life etc. Anything we do to help them must be balanced with the crimes and moral neglect associated with addiction. I.E. Will decriminalising illicit drugs impact the wider public negatively etc. Theres always good stats in relation to ‘bringing down HIV incidents’ etc, but was there any impact felt by residents of areas with drug problems. Higher crime?, More bravado by users, feeling that they can just be more public with their drug use etc?
A mobile device for preventing and treating drug use
February 9, 2012
.iHeal system architecture (credit: Boyer EW, et al./Journal of Medical Toxicology)
University of Massachusetts Medical School researchers are developing a smartphone-based system called “iHeal” that detects drug cravings and attempts to prevent drug use.
A drug user wears a sensor band around their wrist that measures skin conductance, skin temperature, motion, and pulse — all indicators of arousal or stress. The band wirelessly transmits information to a smartphone, where apps monitor and process the user’s physiological data using self-improving machine learning software to identify when changes in physiology (e.g., increased pulse/skin conductance and motion) potentially arose from changes in sympathetic tone (as from drug craving and PTSD) rather than from exertion.
When the software detects increased stress or arousal, it asks the user to annotate events by inputting information about their perceived level of stress, drug cravings, and current activities. iHeal’s ultimate goal is to identify, in real time, drug cravings and deliver personalized, multimedia drug prevention interventions precisely at the moment of greatest need.
The researchers selected the Android OS because of ease of programming and because it supports the use of multiple Bluetooth connections from the sensor band to the phone. The phone also communicated via encrypted data to a secure web server and Microsoft SQL database in a high-security location.
Ref.: Boyer EW, et al., Preliminary efforts directed toward the detection of craving of illicit substances: the iHeal Project, Journal of Medical Toxicology, March 2012; (in press)
Topics: Biotech | Electronics | Internet/Telecom
Good luck with that. Maybe some day you’ll get them all, just like the ‘war on terror’.
Thanks for this, it will help a lot of people who needed treatment. more power to your site.
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