Gardaí say cocaine overdoses common

Senior Garda sources have told The Irish Times there are no known links between the incidents in which two young Waterford men…

Senior Garda sources have told The Irish Timesthere are no known links between the incidents in which two young Waterford men died, the death of Katy French and events at the weekend in Mullingar and Longford.

The same sources said it was "highly unlikely" a contaminated or very pure batch of cocaine was to blame for any of the incidents.

"There's nothing to suggest any links between any of the overdoses," said one source.

Other Garda sources said incidents like the collapse of the two men in Longford and Mullingar at the weekend were a near daily occurrence across the country with cocaine-related fatalities also regularly occurring.

READ MORE

"In some of these cases, alcohol was a factor as well as cocaine and there is evidence that ecstasy was also involved in the incident in Longford."

A 17-year-old teenager from Mullingar and a 26-year-old man from Longford town were both in intensive care at the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar last night with a suspected cocaine overdose. Their condition had improved last night from "critical" to "stable".

The teenager collapsed on the streets of Mullingar early on Sunday morning while the man was found by a member of his family in his apartment in the town on Saturday afternoon. It is believed that he had been at his Christmas work party on Friday night.

Gardaí said such hospitalisations were common and had only come to prominence in recent weeks because of high-profile deaths from cocaine overdoses.

"In some hospitals even in fairly rural places, there are five and six people admitted for cocaine complications every weekend," said one senior Garda source. "In Dublin over the weekend, there were a number of people taken to Tallaght hospital after taking the drug so we're seeing it all the time now."

Longford-Westmeath TD and former government minister Mary O'Rourke said she believed that the death of Ms French was not acting as a deterrent, although she stressed that it had not been confirmed that her two constituents had taken a drugs overdose.

"It should be a deterrent. It's a horrible deterrent to all of us, but I've heard of some young girls who are putting Katy up on to a pedestal. If we are looking at a deterrent, I think that some young people would be inclined to say, 'oh, she had a wonderful life, didn't she?' "

Fine Gael community affairs spokesman Michael Ring has called on senior Cabinet Ministers and the Garda Commissioner to hold a crisis meeting to tackle the problem of cocaine.