The Cannabis Debate: Ireland and Drugs- The Facts at last

Hot Press is delighted to announce its participation in the Global Drugs Survey 2014, which for the first time is including Ireland in its fact-finding brief.

With Luke Flanagan TD’s recent Cannabis Regulation Bill debate highlighting the lack of official data available here, the Survey will offer a unique insight into the Republic’s pharmaceutical habits, whether it be the occasional spliff, a pre-going-to-the-pub naggin of vodka, some uppers or downers from your GP, a recreational weekend gram of coke or a full-blown heroin habit.
Conducted anonymously online, the findings will not only be of interest to consumers, but also to the medical practitioners and members of law enforcement who for too long have been forced to guess about the precise nature of the drug trades here, both legal and illegal.
“I’m really chuffed that Hot Press has come on board as our official Irish media partner,” enthuses Dr. Adam Winstock, the Consultant Psychiatrist and Addiction Medicine Specialist responsible for crunching the GDS numbers, which Hot Press will exclusively be publishing in March next year. “We did the first Drug Survey in 1999 with Mixmag at the height of the dance music explosion. We took a bit of a break, and were then up and running again in 2011. Originally just a UK thing, we’re going international this year with eight languages, 17 countries and 27 media partners who include The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Australian, Stuff.Co.NZ, Zeit Online, La Liberacion and yourselves.
“We’ve three big focuses – one of them being cannabis. How dominant or otherwise is skunk and what’s ‘the perfect weed’? The second is Acceptability and Adoption of Harm Reduction Strategies, which is a fancy way of saying, ‘What do people in the real world do to keep themselves safe when they take coke, pills, ketamine, acid, meth, heroin, valium, mephedrone, alcohol etc. etc.’ Thirdly, we’ve got a whole section on workplace drug testing and how that influences people’s use of drugs. It’s becoming a big issue in the UK – and will, I’m sure, rear its head here in the very near future.”
Asked how seriously the Global Drug Survey is taken by officialdom, Winstock reveals: “Last year I spoke to about 400 police at a conference in the UK regarding drug use patterns. We don’t directly give data to law enforcement, but we’re happy to brief them on how people are using drugs, and highlight the very limited harm a lot of them experience. We published about 20 research papers in high-flying medical journals like the BMJ so, yes, I think we’re taken very seriously by professionals working in the field.”
Does Winstock think that the Chief Constable of Durham is alone in wanting to legalise all prohibited substances?
“I think there are a lot of police who’d rather be doing other things,” he suggests. “Often in the UK when people are arrested with a small amount of drugs nothing happens even though technically it should. The cops just don’t want the hassle of doing the paperwork. A question we ask is, ‘If the laws were changed, how would that influence your use of drugs?’ That’s important information to have.”
Does he have any expectations of what will come out of the Global Drugs Survey being conducted here for the first time?
“I think, sadly, one of the headlines will be that Ireland has the most expensive weed in the world. There’s something wrong in a country when it’s as expensive to have a cannabis habit as it is to be dependent on heroin. I’m also looking forward to seeing how your drinking stats compare to everyone else.
“I understand that drinks companies were branded Ireland’s biggest ‘pushers’ during the Dáil debate on cannabis. Well, another group of pushers who come out very badly from the Survey are doctors. Why would you pay 50 quid to a dealer for a shitty gram of heroin when you might be able to con your GP out of a prescription for pure MS Contin? One in four people who received a prescription for an opioid medication told us they’d used it in the last year to get high, so my guess is that it’s more of a problem than we think. And of course it’s something you don’t know unless you ask.”
No skimming of the surface, the 2014 Global Drug Survey takes roughly 20 minutes to complete, and includes such nitty-gritty questions as, “If you could create the perfect cannabis how would it make you feel?”; “How many lines do you get out a gram of cocaine?”; “Does anyone take notice of drinking guidelines?” and “What’s the safest way of using drugs without reducing the buzz you get?”
“To be of value it has to be that detailed,” Winstock stresses. “It’s also important to get as many respondents as possible so I’d ask all your readers to spread the word through whatever means – Twitter, Facebook, Reddit etc. etc. – they have at their disposal. Let’s pull together the data that’s needed to formulate a coherent Irish drug policy.”
Amen to that!
To participate in the Global Drug Survey, visit www.globaldrugsurvey.com/GDS2014 before December 20 and, like the good Doctor says, please spread the word!