Home > Does Sydney have the solution to Dublin’s public drug-taking problem?

[thejournal.ie] , Duffin, Tony Does Sydney have the solution to Dublin’s public drug-taking problem? (13 Apr 2015)

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Every week, there are hundreds of episodes of people injecting drugs publicly in Dublin city centre. This creates problems for everyone.

For the people who inject drugs, doing so publicly is demeaning and increases risks of infection and overdose. I know of many people who do not have their own homes, and have to leave their accommodation every morning and come back every evening. For them, public injecting is an inevitability.

For city centre businesses, public drug taking hinders them in promoting and presenting the capital as a good place to spend time and money.

For the public, including our many tourists, unsafely disposed drug paraphernalia are unsightly and unsafe. Thousands of unsafely disposed needles are picked up every year in the central business district alone.

The problem has not gone unnoticed – An Taoiseach referred to “beds of needles” on our streets in his Dail speech on the issue of homelessness on 10 December 2014. In March 2015, there were media reports on a rise in needle stick injuries among City Council workers. Everyone is agreed that there is a problem, but how do we go about solving it?....


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