1970s Heroin use in
Ireland has always centred on
Dublin, and to a lesser extent
Cork city. could not find any evidence of significant use of heroin, which they attributed to the difficulty of obtaining supplies at the time. Drug use was limited mostly to cannabis and LSD. These drugs were seen as part of student sub-culture;
Hugh Byrne, a
TD debating what was to be the
1977 Misuse of Drugs Act, described
Trinity College Dublin as "a nest and a hive for the production of LSD [...] leaflets containing the formula of LSD have been freely sold around the campus". He blamed this activity on foreign students in areas of "advanced study". The main treatment centre for drug users was at
Jervis Street Hospital. The National Drug Advisory and treatment Centre was founded there in 1969. In 1973, the Coolmine therapeutic community was founded as a voluntary body to provide a structure for people to "maintain a drug-free existence". In 1979, there was a dramatic increase in the supply of heroin to Western Europe, usually attributed to
the fall of the Shah in Iran and the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This marked the start of an epidemic in inner-city Dublin.
1980s The number of heroin users in Dublin continued to grow in the early 1980s. The 1983 Bradshaw Report found that in north central Dublin, 10% of 15- to 24-year-olds had used heroin in the previous year; the figure was 12% for 15- to 19-year-olds, and 13% for females of the same age group. The report also confirmed Dublin as a centre for heroin use, with only three or four heroin users in Cork and Galway. Following this report, the government created a Special Governmental Task Force on Drug Abuse in April 1983. Their report recommended funding community facilities in deprived areas, but this was at odds with government policy at the time, so the report went unpublished. The government's position was that drug abusers were victims of their own choices, rather than their socio-economic circumstances. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1984 was enacted to provide for tougher punishments than the 1977 Act. The 1980s also saw the rise of community groups which organised themselves to rid their local areas of drugs. Priests, politicians and even
Provisional IRA members took part in residents' associations in areas of Dublin such as
Fatima Mansions, the Hardwicke Street flats, St. Teresa's Gardens, and Dolphin House. Groups met to name and shame drug dealers, giving them the choice either to stop dealing or leave the area. Actions broadened to include patrols by residents, checkpoints to search vehicles for drugs, forced evictions, and other
vigilante actions. These local groups got together and adopted a constitution in February 1984, naming themselves "
Concerned Parents Against Drugs". A survey by the Department of Health in 1986 found that 30% of intravenous drug users were HIV positive. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ireland was most active among intravenous drug users. Treatment in centres such as Trinity Court required a commitment from the patient to achieve abstinence from drugs. In light of the HIV epidemic, this policy was revised in 1992 to one of
harm reduction. This different approach recognised that the harms of drug use, such as the spread of HIV, were of a greater danger to society than drug use itself. Harm reduction was implemented in the form of methadone maintenance and
needle exchange programmes. The first needle exchange opened in 1989 and there were about eleven others by the end of the 1990s. There are now plans to offer needle exchange services at pharmacies. In the very late 1980s & the early 1990s, the
Irish Republican &
Revolutionary socialist paramilitary group the
Irish People's Liberation Organisation or just "IPLO" for short, brought in thousands & thousands of
Ecstasy pills also known as "E" & "E pills" (chemically known as (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (
MDMA) ) into Ireland. According to authors
Henry McDonald &
Jack Holland, the IPLO became involved in drug dealing in early 1989 and at £25 per pill, the IPLO made massive profits from the drug trade. The pills were bought in
Amsterdam & then the IPLO smuggled their pills out from
Holland, then to France along old
Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) (the group the IPLO split from) arm routes & to
Rosslare Europort,
County Wexford,
Republic of Ireland, they were then hidden & stored in a safe house in
Swords, County Dublin and some of the pills were sold around Dublin city, but the vast bulk of the E Pills were sold in
Belfast City where the IPLO was at its strongest militarily. According to Holland & McDonald, the drugs were hidden & packed under the floorboards of camper vans and driven across Europe towards western French ports. Once in Ireland the pills were placed inside
Paracetamol bottles & delivered to Belfast. In October 1992 the
Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade wiped out the IPLO in Belfast. ==Head shops==