The Director of the Ana Liffey Drug Project, Tony Duffin said a recent surge in hallucinogenic stimulants has also made addicts’ behaviour somewhat more challenging lately.

A report featured in last night’s RTÉ Prime Time suggested the scale of drug-taking and anti-social behaviour in the city during the day time has increased. Garda detection numbers for sale and possession of drugs are up significantly but Ana Liffey’s Tony Duffin told TheJournal.ie that this does not necessarily mean things are worse now.

“For me anyway, from our experience, I wouldn’t agree that things have gotten worse – I think things have changed,” he said. “The street drug market has shifted around. The guards have clamped down on it in the inner city and so you’ve got this notion of dispersal. The [Prime Time] report had owners from two businesses on the Southside who have been affected by this because now it’s more visible in other areas.”

Drug trends themselves have changed too in the city, as Duffin explained a recent surge in people injecting drugs that were sold as crystal meth and are in fact different forms of stimulants and hallucinogenics.