IRISH drug addicts are far younger than those of other European countries, according to a study of addiction across the EU.
The report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction indicates that the average age of Irish addicts starting drug treatment programmes is nearly five years below the European average.
It also says the average age of Irish addicts has been falling, in contrast to the rising trend across Europe.
According to the Lisbon based centre, the average age of Irish addicts starting treatment is 23.8 years, compared to an average of 28.6 years for the 12 countries which were able to supply figures.
The centre describes its report, State of the Drugs Problem in the European Union, as the first snapshot of drugs in Europe".
The EU agency, set up two years ago, warns that different methods of collecting figures across the EU means not all data related to drug addiction are directly comparable.
The report's assertion that the typical Irish addict is younger than those elsewhere in Europe, however, is supported by figures from the Merchants Quay Drug Project in Dublin, which directs drug addicts to treatment programmes.
Mr Tony Geoghegan, of the project, which deals with about 100 people daily, told a conference in Dublin last weekend that he was very concerned about the falling age of its clients.
Over the past five years there had been a marked decrease in the average age of people coming to the project seeking help. In 1991 the average age for men and women was 29 years. This year the average was 24 years for men and 25 for women.
The EU report, published yesterday, says the UK and the Republic are exceptions to trends elsewhere in Europe, where the average age of addicts seeking treatment has been rising.
The report also indicates that just over 82 per cent of Irish drug addicts being treated were addicted mainly to opiates such as heroin. The figure is in line with the trends in other European countries, but may reflect the treatment programmes offered more than the level of opiate use.
The Eastern Health Board is currently reorganising its clinics in Dublin, where most Irish opiate addicts live, to offer treatment programmes to those smoking heroin as well as those who inject the drug.
The report says that compared with other states a "significant proportion" of new AIDS cases in the Republic is due to injecting drugs. At 44 per cent, it is the third highest rate of the 15 member states. (The proportion in Spain and Italy was over 60 per cent.) The virus is usually transmitted from one drug user to the next via a shared hypodermic needle.
The decline in new AIDS cases in the Republic mirrors the trend in most other member states, with only five of the 15 states showing an increasing rate in 1995.
But the report's authors warn about drawing conclusions from the AIDS data because of wide variations in some figures (for example, the report shows the Republic had 3.6 new cases of AIDS for every one million people in 1995, compared with more than 100 new cases per million people in Spain that year).
They suggest the variations may be partly due to the different times at which the virus began to spread in the drug injecting population, and point out that there is a long time lag between HIV infection and the development of AIDS.
"It is important to remember that on average 10 years elapse between the time a person becomes infected and when they develop the symptoms which lead to them being recorded as a new case of AIDS," it says.
The report's study of anti drug laws in EU member states suggests the Republic has one of the sternest regimes, even before the latest batch of legislation passed by the Government in its anti crime "package" last July.
The Republic was one of only five member-states where drug traffickers or major dealers could be sentenced to life imprisonment, although the other states had sentences ranging up to 20 years on their statute books.
Despite the variety of information gathering systems in member states, which blurs the "snapshot" of drug use offered by the report, the study shows most member states are trying to deal with the drug problem using a similar mix of law enforcement, education and treatment programmes. The director of the centre, Mr Georges Estienvart, said it is now working on ways to improve the data and make comparisons more valid.