Ways must be found to get over the stigma that many middle-class people feel about getting drug treatment if the increasing levels of cocaine addiction are to be addressed, the Minister of State with responsibility for drugs, Noel Ahern, has said.
Mr Ahern was speaking to The Irish Times at an event to mark the publication of the new three-year strategy for Coolmine community, one of the State's oldest drug rehabilitation services.
He said he did not like to use words like "crisis", but added his department was "concerned at the degree to which cocaine has moved into new sectors".
"Cocaine is probably a more dangerous drug than heroin in terms of its long-term health implications. And yet those new groups who use it and see it as a recreational, Hollywood-type of drug are slower to accept they have a problem. They often won't accept they have a drug problem," said Mr Ahern.
"Then there's a reluctance, if they begin to see they do have a problem, to go for treatment, to come to a service they may feel is not for them, is 'just for druggies'. We have to find a way to get over that stigma, because cocaine is so, so dangerous."
Paul Conlon, chief executive, Coolmine Therapeutic Community in Blanchardstown, Dublin, said the "practice of injecting opiates has become endemic in deprived urban areas and recently there has been an increase in cocaine use across a range of different user groups".
