Cocaine clinics to open (Eire)

The clinics form a key part of the Government’s strategy to deal with a growing cocaine problem.

They are in addition to the drop-in centre for recreational cocaine users in Galway which was set up three weeks ago.

“The development of two stimulant cocaine clinics in Dublin and Cork is currently been scoped and costed with a view to commencing the service in 2007,” said a spokeswoman for the Health Service Executive (HSE).

The establishment of such clinics was recommended by key Government advisory agencies last March and backed by Drugs Strategy Minister Noel Ahern.

A report on cocaine published by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs and the National Drugs Strategy Team called for specific cocaine services, greater training for health workers and information campaigns for users.

The report said many cocaine users were put off by existing treatment clinics which were heavily focused, particularly in Dublin, on treating heroin addicts.

The HSE spokeswoman said the drop-in cocaine service in Galway, which operates one day a week, complemented the planned clinics.

“The service will be monitored as to its effectiveness and take-up and will inform the development of the stimulant clinics in Cork and Dublin,” she said.

Fiona Walsh of the HSE Western Drugs Service said: “We’ve noticed an increase in the number of people presenting with cocaine-related problems in the last 12 to 18 months, sufficiently to warrant a special clinic.”

The HSE is also funding a pilot cocaine project in Tallaght and has appointed a project manager specifically to deal with cocaine.

Figures published in the Irish Examiner last month revealed a 900% jump in the number of cocaine addicts treated in the past seven years.

However, national surveys show the majority of cocaine users are not addicts and do not seek treatment.

Ms Walsh said the clinic was targeting this group: “The challenge for us is that often people who take cocaine and consider themselves recreational users if you like, they don’t present early enough for support. They think, ‘I can handle this, it’s not a problem’.

“The difficulty is by the time they do present, they are in a chaotic spiral of anxiety, fatigue, irritability and often violence.

“Our aim in this clinic is to try and get them in the door early.”

Cocaine clinics to open in Dublin and Cork later this year
Irish Examiner
20/06/2007

Source: http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2007/06/20/story35439.asp

tambourine-man said:

However, national surveys show the majority of cocaine users are not addicts and do not seek treatment.

Ms Walsh said the clinic was targeting this group: “The challenge for us is that often people who take cocaine and consider themselves recreational users if you like, they don’t present early enough for support. They think, ‘I can handle this, it’s not a problem’.

“The difficulty is by the time they do present, they are in a chaotic spiral of anxiety, fatigue, irritability and often violence.

“Our aim in this clinic is to try and get them in the door early.”

Cocaine clinics to open in Dublin and Cork later this year
Irish Examiner
20/06/2007

Source: http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2007/06/20/story35439.asp

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And here is the slippery slope when we accept calling drug addiction a disease, eventually clinics and treatment centers wanting to increase profits start calling all drug use a disease. Then all drug users are considered mentally disabled or whatever.

I understand why we were all for it, we hoped it would soften societies attitudes and legal consequences, and it did.

But in the long run I'd rather drug use be viewed as a lack of discipline, like eating too many sweets. Than to have recreational users considered to have a disease.

i dont get it, how do they treat them? for fucks sake coke doesnt get you physically hooked like that. whats next, clinics for pot heads?

medicine cabinet said:

i dont get it, how do they treat them? for fucks sake coke doesnt get you physically hooked like that. whats next, clinics for pot heads?

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They have those too.

garuda said:

And here is the slippery slope when we accept calling drug addiction a disease, eventually clinics and treatment centers wanting to increase profits start calling all drug use a disease. Then all drug users are considered mentally disabled or whatever.

I understand why we were all for it, we hoped it would soften societies attitudes and legal consequences, and it did.

But in the long run I'd rather drug use be viewed as a lack of discipline, like eating too many sweets. Than to have recreational users considered to have a disease.

Click to expand...

Drug addiction = mental health issue. Life in general or life + recreational drug use both can = mental health issue. With or without drugs, people get fucked up mentally.

If there are clinics for internet abuse, there are clinics for anything....

garuda said:

And here is the slippery slope when we accept calling drug addiction a disease, eventually clinics and treatment centers wanting to increase profits start calling all drug use a disease ...

But in the long run I'd rather drug use be viewed as a lack of discipline ...

Click to expand...

How true!

Medicalising the drug problem can be as bad as criminalising it. For once psychiatric hospitals can just be glorified prisons. Remember how psychiatric hospitals were misused to silence political dissidents in the Soviet Union? They can provide an opportunity to destroy the patient/addict mentally (pumping him with neuroleptics or, worse, with new drugs that block receptors and cripple the brain).

And, of course, there's the danger of creating a hospital-industrial complex on top of the already existing prison-industrial complex. We have a corrupted police and justice system now because of the drug war, do we want a corrupt hospital system as well? The war-on-drugs is getting bigger by the day, soon it will become the all-embracing paradigm of the Western World.

Apart from extreme junkies, who know they are ill and already get adequate treatment, drug users are just healthy people who have decided to use up some of their health for the sake of enjoying life by manipulating their own brain chemistry from time to time. Health is just some starting capital we get at birth, and it goes away with age anyway, so it is for each individual to decide how to spend it. The only worthy combat is for total legalisation of all drugs, period.