Sir, – I refer to your editorial on the emerging public health crisis around cocaine (“The Other Public Health Crisis”, June 9th.)
While the issue of cocaine rightly attracts media attention, the crisis which you warn about must be seen in the broader context of rising alcohol and drug abuse and particularly the normalisation of the abuse of cannabis.
In the age cohort covered by the Health Research Board report (ages 15-24), cannabis causes significantly more episodes of addiction treatment, more psychiatric admissions and more medical hospital admissions than cocaine. It has a significant impact on behaviour, family relations, career progression and mental health. We continue to see many cases where the impact of excess alcohol causes huge damage to individuals and families.
A key element of the response to increasing drug and alcohol use includes improving education for young people to better inform them about the real risks they are taking.
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There has been an excellent development of information presentation to young people over a number of years but more is needed.
This is currently being reviewed within the National Drug and Alcohol Strategy, to enhance further and real, effective engagement in discussing the risks.
We should also sharpen our focus on increasing treatment for substance dependency and other associated problems.
It is estimated that 3-4 per cent of people with alcohol or cannabis dependence seek treatment in any one year. At a minimum, we should aim to increase that figure up to 10 per cent in all cases, but that will require substantial additional resources for our outpatient addiction services.
Outpatient services are the first point of contact, the first point of intervention and can manage most cases – but we are way behind even the service development suggested in national mental health policy as far back as 2006 (A Vision for Change).
It is worth noting that increased resources would bring the benefits for the public purse of reducing demand for the consequences of drug addiction including mental health problems, suicide, road deaths, homelessness, domestic violence and child neglect.
– Yours, etc,
Dr GERRY McCARNEY,
Consultant child
and adolescent psychiatrist
in addiction,
College of Psychiatrists
of Ireland,
Herbert Street,
Dublin 2.