Liberal attitudes to drugs pose a danger to addicts as well as the wider public. Addicts are risking poisoning themselves with illegal drugs at a Government-sanctioned ‘shooting gallery’, Dublin City Councillor Cieran Perry has warned.
Cllr. Perry says that the city centre drug room run by charity Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI), which allows users to inject heroin and cocaine without fear of prosecution, is simply “maintaining people in addiction”.
During the first six weeks of operation, 233 people visited Ireland’s first ever Medically Supervised Injection Facility (MSIF) and staff have already reported treating 15 overdoses.
Perry told RTÉ’s Prime Time that the 18-month pilot project is not “trying to get to the core problem of tackling addiction” and that “referral rates historically are extremely poor from facilities like this”.
He criticised MQI for failing to tackle “personal addiction and to get people off drugs to provide detoxification or rehabilitation”.
The Independent Councillor accused the project of “allowing them, facilitating them, to continue to poison themselves.”
Plans to open the drug shooting gallery have faced strong opposition from the outset over the dangers it presents to local school children, the adverse impact on tourism, and for attracting drug dealers.