Ana Liffey Drug Project Offer Harm Reduction Services To Irish Festivals

Dublin’s Ana Liffey Drug Project is offering to provide Irish festivals with essential harm reduction information.
“We know that promoters are in no way complicit, but however hard they try to stop it there will be a minority of people who bring drugs with them to take at festivals,” Ana Liffey Director Tony Duffin says. “We’d like to work with them to provide sensible harm reduction advice beforehand on social media and then in leaflet form at events. The only cost to them would be the printing.
“Better still would be to provide a physical presence at festivals,” he continues. “In cases where people require assistance and counselling but not further medical treatment, we can work with the emergency services to help take some of the pressure off them. We always start with the proviso, ‘It’s better not to take drugs, but if however you decide to do so here is the information you need…’ The type of harm reduction advice we’re proposing is already in place at UK festivals like T In The Park and hopefully it’ll become the norm here too. If anybody wants more details they can contact me at [email protected] or Freephone 1800 78 68 28.”
Duffin points to Ana Liffey’s current What’s In The Pill? campaign as an example of how specific groups can be targeted.
“DIT, Trinity College and UCD have all come on board, which means we’re reaching tens of thousands of students, some of whom are either taking or contemplating taking drugs for the first time, and need to know what they’re dealing with.”
Recipients last week of a Lord Mayor’s Award, Ana Liffey advised the former Minister for Drugs, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, on the introduction of medically supervised injecting rooms here.
“What I’d say to the new government is that we need a Minister of State with sole responsibility for Drug Strategy; all of my voluntary sector colleagues would be looking for that as well,” Duffin maintains. “Hopefully supervised injecting facilities are mentioned in the final Programme For Government because there are people injecting on the street and down alleyways that will die unless they’re introduced. Ideally, something will be set in motion before the Dáil goes on its summer recess next month.”