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# Addiction
Is crystal meth on the rise? One Councillor says it's like Breaking Bad out there
As far back as 2012 Father Peter McVerry was warning that the drug was going to ravage areas in Ireland like it has done in the US.
THEY’RE SCRATCHING THEMSELVES, there’s big scabs all over them. It’s like it’s eating them from the inside out.
That’s how one drug user described crystal meth – saying it was the worst drug he had ever seen.
Speaking on RTÉ, he said, ”People are only on it a week or two and you can see it in their appearance.
“They’re paranoid 24/7, they think people are after them, looking for things that aren’t there. It’s crazy.
“It’s starting to take a hold and when it does Dublin is going to be ruined because of it.”
Crystal methamphetamine is a powerful synthetic stimulant which is highly addictive. It can be smoked in a glass pipe, injected, snorted or swallowed.
A senior source at the Revenue’s Customs Service told TheJournal.ie that, “There has been a significant increase in the number of investigations into crystal meth traffickers in the past year.”
‘Breaking Bad hits Lucan’
As far back as 2012 experienced drug worker Father Peter McVerry said the drug was readily available in Ballymun, Dublin.
Crystal meth has ravaged whole communities in the US and the same is happening in Ireland.
A spate of crystal meth related crimes in Lucan caused one Councillor to say that Breaking Bad has hit the area.
Fine Gael’s William Lavelle said that gardaí had come across six cases involving people who had taken the drug in the space of just two weeks.
Forget ‘Breaking Bad’… this is a highly dangerous drug and can lead to severe violence by users not to mention the catastrophic health impacts.
‘Making people violent’
Drugs service Coolmine Clinic told TheJournal.ie that while it’s not seeing an increase in the numbers of clients entering with crystal meth addictions – there seems to be a problem with another synthetic drug, very similar to crystal meth in its presentation, called PVP.
Gardai have also arrested several people in recent months for dealing in PVP.
Meanwhile Brother Kevin Crowley from the Capuchin Day Centre said this week that a new drug is making some users at the centre very violent and that extra security had to be brought in recently.
It’s believed that a synthetic substance called MDPV is the cause of the violent behavior.
Director of the Ana Liffey Drug Project Tony Duffin told TheJournal.ie that many people are buying both PVP and MDPV thinking it’s crystal meth.
“The street name for it is ice- people think they’re buying meth but almost certainly it’s not.”
He said that the increase in these types of drugs started happening around September:
This is definitely an issue on the streets of Dublin and around the country but certainly in Dublin- we are dealing with it on a daily basis.
“For the people we work with who use more than one drug- that’s the wider issue – they are the people who have the biggest problems and we need more treatment options for them.”
Read: The morning my father was buried in Dublin, I was doing drugs down an alley in London’>
