Dublin heroin centre opens amid widespread concern

Addicts can now inject illegal drugs at a Government-sanctioned ‘shooting gallery’ in Dublin.

The first of its kind in Ireland, the city-centre facility is open seven days a week and enables users to take drugs without fear of prosecution.

Plans to open the trial drug room by charity Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) faced strong opposition over the risks it presents to local school children, the adverse impact on tourism, and the attraction it presents to drug dealers.

Decriminalisation

CEO of MQI Eddie Mullins said: “People who use our services every day — for needles or for crack pipes — are carrying drugs when they go in, and they’re carrying drugs when they leave. The only difference now is that they consume their heroin or cocaine on the facility.”

The Irish Examiner described it as “the only building in Ireland where you will have to show you have illegal drugs in order to get in.

“Those with the drugs are breaking the law outside the building, but once they step inside — they are not.”

Children at risk

Mullins acknowledged that nearby St Audoen’s National School, which caters for pre-school and primary-aged children, still has “fundamental objections”.

“Their focus has been about the children. They know this area has been ravaged by addiction, and they are not opposed to helping people. Their opposition was about ‘is this going to make it an even bigger problem?’”

He continued: “Now, there’s an approach of ‘let’s see what the outcomes are and, if there are issues, let us address them’.”

Mullins is already calling for legislation to allow the 18-month pilot project to provide “an opportunity for people who take other drugs, who are smoking drugs”.

Serious problem

More than half of the Irish public have serious concerns about the use of illegal drugs in their local community, according to a Eurobarometer survey conducted across all 27 EU member states.

Respondents from Portugal, which decriminalised drugs in 2001, were the most likely to be concerned about local drug use (68 per cent of 1,008 respondents). Ireland ranked second at 58 per cent of the same number of respondents. The EU average was 39 per cent.

Irish residents were the most likely to believe that it would be “easy” to obtain cocaine (58 per cent) and heroin (33 per cent) within 24 hours. Almost half of those surveyed in Ireland thought the problems caused by drug use and drug trafficking have increased locally over the past few years.

At the beginning of last year, the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use called for the wholesale liberalisation of laws on the possession of illegal drugs, including cocaine, cannabis, heroin, and opioids.