Hot Press’ Stuart Clark appeared on Pat Kenny’s Newstalk radio show on Tuesday to discuss the Irish chemsex scene and the drugs like GHB and meth that fuel it.
Whilst it was only last week that it made newspaper headlines here, Hot Press identified chemsex as a growing phenomenon during the summer with an in-depth report you can click here to read.
“You’re not going to police your way out of this,” Stuart told Pat. “What’s required is a coordinated, nuanced response from government, the medical profession and the LGBTQ community and its support networks.”
Just how prevalent GHB use is in Ireland is one of the questions that will be answered as Hot Press separates pharmaceutical fact from fiction with the Global Drug Survey 2017.
You can help us find out who's taking what, where, how often and for how much by taking 15 minutes to fill-out the confidential questionnaire, which has already been completed worldwide by over 176,000 people, click here
Hot Press put many of last year’s Irish findings to then Minister for Drugs, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who acknowledged the importance of the Global Drug Survey. We’ll be looking to talk to his successor, Catherine Byrne, about the 2017 findings as soon as the numbers are crunched. Have friends who take drugs? Tell them about the Global Drug Survey, so that we can present politicians with facts rather than hearsay and rumour.
Also supported internationally by the likes of The Guardian, La Republica, San Francisco Chronicle, Vice, Zeit and Stuff NZ, there’s a special focus this year on our drinking habits, vaping, police stop/search/arrest, novel psychoactive substances and drugs and driving.
Among the myriad questions that will be answered are, “Is Irish cannabis still the most expensive in Europe?”; “How widespread is the use of dangerous synthetic cannabis here?”; “Can you get butane hash oil in Ireland?”; “What new designer drugs and legal highs are people taking?”; “Has the internet taken over from street dealers?”; “Are smart drugs really that smart?”, and “Do clubbers take more drugs than the rest of the population?”
Meanwhile, the bumper Hot Press 2017 Annual includes an interview with the man looking to make medical marijuana legal here with his private member’s bill.
“The emails that I’ve got from people that it will affect, or are using cannabis, is just extraordinary,” People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny tells us. “The more I read about [its use in relieving] MS and cancer, I said, ‘God, there’s something in this!’”
Gino pointed to the Presidential Election Day referenda, which saw medicinal and/or recreational marijuana legalised in eight more US states – a subject addressed in our recent Audacity of Dope report click here
It now looks almost certain that 2017 will see the introduction of Dublin’s first medically supervised injecting room. The extent of the capital’s heroin problem was highlighted in February when Hot Press was taken on urban safari by the Ana Liffey Drug Project who showed us a square next to Dáil Éireann that was carpeted with discarded needles and other paraphernalia. For the full lowdown click here
Safe injecting rooms and other solutions were proffered when doctors, agency chiefs and the aforementioned Aodhán Ó Ríordáin gathered in June for the Hot Press Heroin Think Tank.
“My first day in the Department of Health, I was getting a lift up to my office – which they used for yoga on Thursday by the way!” he recalled. “I went to peer through the window and they were like, ‘No, don’t look out!’ I asked ‘Why?’ and they said, ‘Because they shoot up out there.’ And they do, right in the shadow of the Department of Health. I knew I had less than a year, so I had to pick my battles. I was also Minister for Equality and all the groups I was dealing with – disabilities, LGBT, migrants – have disproportionately high substance abuse problems, because they’re disconnected from mainstream society.”
For the full discussion click here