Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 29 Mar 2000

Vol. 517 No. 1

Adjournment Debate. - Recreational Drug Use.

Mr. Coveney

This is a difficult topic to cover in five minutes but I will do my best. The danger of soft drugs to the young population has never been addressed effectively through Government policy. As a result, the abuse of soft drugs for recreational purposes is widespread.

I wish to highlight a few alarming facts. Ireland has the highest level of ecstasy abuse in the EU among 15 and 16 year olds. One in ten mid-teen Irish students uses ecstasy and almost one in five uses cannabis. Ireland has the highest drug related death rate of any country in Europe, a figure that continues to rise annually.

The problem is not confined to one sector of society. It does not matter from what address a child comes, all children will be exposed to recreational drugs. Perhaps what is most frightening is that experimentation with recreational drugs is now the norm for many teenagers. Despite recent large drug busts by the Garda, drugs, and recreational drugs in particular, are more freely available than ever.

Clearly we as legislators are failing our young if we do not change tack in this area as current measures are failing. The big question is what measures we can introduce to make a definite impact. We must continue with some of the current policies but also introduce some new measures. Targeting pubs and night-clubs to ensure owners take a responsible attitude towards recreational drugs is happening, helped by the introduction of the licensing legislation in 1997 which allows gardaí to search premises. This has resulted in many pub and club owners policing their own premises. Preventative education, primarily in schools, to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs must continue, but has been shown not to be a solution. I sometimes think that for young people, many of whom see themselves as invincible, the more dangerous a substance the more exciting it is to experiment with. Awareness campaigns have clearly not worked in terms of smoking and drinking.

We must attempt to change the image of drug use. We must make it "uncool" to use drugs by creating drug free role models, for example, through aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns. It seems strange to launch a marketing campaign against something which is illegal, but it must be done.

The key area to concentrate on is the relationship between law enforcement and recreational drug use. Currently gardaí are in a hopeless situation. If they come across a person using soft drugs they have little option but to merely give a warning. Gardaí will rarely go through the court process as this would further clog up the court and legal systems and irritate judges in many cases. They also know that many recreational drug users do not belong in prison. As a result many drug users have no real fear of being caught and so do not take the law seriously in this area. Gardaí need to be equipped with a system which is not over the top in terms of severity, but which will ensure they are taken seriously by young people who use recreational drugs. A fair way to do this is to establish a specially designated drugs court which has been promised by the Government. It should be run by drugs experts in coalition with the Judiciary. People should be sent to drugs courts to be assessed if found to be using recreational drugs. A properly trained panel of experts should decide if a penalty is required or if counselling or assistance is necessary, as in the case of severe addicts. A judge could be asked to pass a penalty – a fine, social work or in serious cases a prison sentence – if required. Depending on the type and level of drug abuse, the drugs court could give different rulings.

It is necessary to take a serious look at this area as it is currently being completely neglected. We have not targeted users, but rather have targeted suppliers, with some success. We must now directly target the many thousands of young people – 15 and 16 year olds and in some cases 11 and 12 year olds – who are taking ecstasy tablets and smoking cannabis to ensure the stress levels of parents who see their children experimenting with drugs they do not understand are reduced.

Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children (Dr. Moffatt)

I thank Deputy Coveney for raising this very important matter. The Deputy's concerns most likely refer to the publication of a working paper, "The State of Young People's Health in the European Union", which was launched on 21 March by the European Commission in Brussels. The working paper deals with a number of areas which are relevant within the framework of the public health action programmes of the European Community. It provides information on trends in the health of young people, including demographic trends, life expectancy and mortality, mental health, smoking and alcohol abuse, nutrition and physical activity.

Contrary to press reports, the figures relating to the use of illicit drugs by young people are not new but in fact are derived from the ESPAD – European Schools Project on Alcohol and other Drugs – report which was conducted among 50,000 16 year olds in 26 European countries in 1995 and which was published around two years ago. The countries involved were the UK – with separate samples for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and Italy, as well as several Eastern European countries. There is not any information about Germany, Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and only limited information from Greece, France and Spain. The study was intended to provide benchmarks against which future policies and programmes may be evaluated. A similar survey was carried out during 1999 but the final results will not be published until later this year.

It is appropriate to bear in mind the difficulties of making comparisons across different cultures and the methodological problems that arise in a study of this scale, especially the problems of ensuring that self-reports are valid in all of the participating countries. The conclusions in the report should, therefore, be considered in the context of these particular difficulties.

Sixteen year olds in the UK and Ireland tend to report somewhat higher levels of illicit drug use than the other countries in the study. It was found that a high proportion who had experimented with illicit drugs had tried cannabis, with 37% of Irish students indicating lifetime use, i.e. they had ever tried it, while 9% reported lifetime use of ecstasy. The proportion of young people reporting life time use of cannabis 20 times or more in Ireland was 10%, compared with 15% in the UK. Current use, that is in the last 30 days, went from 8% who had used once or twice to 7% who had used more than six times. Another important finding was that 61% of students surveyed in Ireland had not ever used illicit drugs.

Regarding ecstasy, it is striking that in each country, a significant number of young people do not think of occasional use as risky. In a number of countries, including Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Estonia, the majority of respondents were of the view that occasional use was not risky. This is worrying and has implications for those who work with young people and who are designing and implementing drug misuse prevention initiatives.

The health promotion unit in my Department implements a wide range of initiatives aimed at creating a greater awareness of the problems of drug misuse and preventing young people from turning to drug misuse in the first instance. It has worked closely with the Department of Education and Science on the development and dissemination of substance abuse prevention programmes in schools. These programmes are On My Own Two Feet, which was launched in 1994 in second level schools and Walk Tall, which is being disseminated to primary schools since 1998. The unit has also developed a drug education video, a youth support work pack, a community-based drug awareness programme, a leadership training programme for primary prevention of drug misuse and a range of resource materials for parents, teachers, young people and those who work in the field of drug abuse prevention.

All health boards are also engaged in a wide variety of health promotion and drug prevention activities. The major objective of the Eastern Regional Health Authority's service plan is to provide a broader based prevention and treatment approach aimed particularly at young people. It has ten drug education officers and a further three will be recruited in 2000. These officers and other outreach staff will integrate health board programmes with youth service initiatives and activities in schools. Further work will be undertaken into appropriate interventions in night-clubs and in the dance scene. In the North Eastern Health Board staff are working with club owners to create a greater awareness among staff of drug problems and how to address them.

The Government's approach to the problem of drug misuse has been, and remains, two-pronged with strong legislation supported by tough law enforcement measures on the one hand and a multi-agency integrated approach targeted at reducing the demand for drugs on the other.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister's five minutes have concluded. The House may agree to allow the Minister continue, but I do not want a precedent to develop which would allow ten minute speeches instead of the five minutes allocated to Members, including Ministers.

Dr. Moffatt

The national drugs strategy team, which is chaired by an official from my Department, is also working to address aspects of demand reduction for drugs. This includes linking with the Departments of Education and Science, Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Tourism Sport and Recreation and the Environment and Local Government, health boards and the community and voluntary sectors in order to implement a comprehensive range of initiatives in a co-ordinated fashion which will aim at preventing young people turning to drugs in the first instance and providing appropriate treatment and rehabilitation to people who are abusing drugs.