FESTIVAL GOERS ARE being warned of new forms of potent drugs that are circulating in Ireland.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1′s Brendan O’Connor show today, HSE addiction lead Prof Eamon Keenan said that there have been “huge changes” in the drugs circulating in recent years.

Between 2021 and 2025, the HSE identified 57 new substances that have never been seen in Ireland before.

Among these are pink cocaine, a new form of ketamine, and synthetic cannabinoids.

Keenan said that while the advice is ultimately to avoid drugs completely, “we live in the real world”.

He said the first thing people need to do if they are taking drugs is to educate themselves about the substances that are circulating.

Samples of pink cocaine are shown during a press briefing in Belgium. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Pink cocaine is one of the drugs that has come onto the scene.

“Pink cocaine isn’t cocaine at all,” Keenan said.

“It sounds great and it’s a great marketing device by dealers.

“It’s been emerging over the last number of years and what we’ve seen is that it contains a number of substances, none of which are cocaine.”

Rather, it is a mix of up to five or six substances, and can contain MDMA, ketamine, and cathinones.

Cathinones, Keenan said, are “stimulant drugs which have emerged on the market over the last while to try and mimic the effects of stimulants like cocaine and like amphetamines, but they’re legal.”

MDMA, or ecstasy, has also tripled in strength in recent times, with some tablets now tested at 300mg, up from 60 to 80mg around 10 years ago. 

“Some of the messaging we give out now is start low and go slow,” he said.

“Don’t take a full tablet. Take a quarter tablet maybe to start with, see how it affects you.

“Don’t take tablets alone, don’t go off into one corner of a field and take a tablet. Tell your friends what’s going on. 

“If you start to feel unwell and things like sweating excessively, feeling nausea, dizziness, confusion, go to the medics straight away and tell the medics what you’ve taken. 

“The medics are not there to judge.”

Keenan also warned about a new form of ketamine, called 2-Fluorodeschloroketamine.

He said that this is much more potent than ketamine, and is more likely to cause mental health problems. 

Ketamine, he explained, is a dissociative drug which people take for its euphoric effect.

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“Quite often it can lead on to confusion, mental health problems,” Keenan said.

“People can become quite detached from their surroundings and go into what’s called a K-hole where they’re completely unaware of what’s going on around them if they’re taking a heavy dose.

“Frequent and heavy dose can lead to bladder problems which people aren’t aware of,” he added.

Keenan said that new synthetic drugs are more potent and more dangerous. 

He spoke about synthetic cannabinoids – in particular hexahydrocannabinol – which is a semisynthetic cannabinoid that is much more potent than cannabis.

Keenan said that his team are in tents at festivals this summer, and people can bring in their drugs for testing.

“We have a laboratory on site at the festival and we can analyse [samples] in about 15 minutes.

“If we identify something as we did last year – for example, we identified the high strength MDMA over 300 mg – we were able to put out a message to everybody at the event through the app,” he said.

“This is very dangerous, be aware that this could kill… we can get real-time information out to people once they surrender substances.”