A Mayo View: Why we need a national debate on cocaine

by Dr. Richard Martin

I remember being in a public house in Galway City about 15 years ago, 2010/2011.

I was in fourth year Med at the time. A gang of us were in the corner of the pub which was a popular haunt for medical students and doctors back then.

I saw an adult I knew across the packed pub and waved over at him. He was at the bar flaking into the drink with what can only be described as a passionate desperation. He saw me, returned the wave and came over.

I knew Peter (not his real name) quite well. At that point Peter was a specialist in his professional field. We bumped into each other regularly around the city. He was always smartly dressed and professional. A nice guy. Humble. Highly intelligent. Self-deprecating and a gentle soul.

In the pub he started talking to me and I couldn’t make head nor tail of what he was on about. The loud music didn’t help either. Talking a mile a minute. Frothing at the mouth.

In the end I stopped trying to make sense of the incoherent chatter and just kept nodding my head when seemed appropriate. I looked at him at one point and the man was transformed. The sweet sensitive disposition had been replaced by a wild feral animal. Whatever planet he was on it wasn’t planet earth.

Cocaine changes people. And not for the better. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde seems cliché but it’s apt accurate description.

A few years back, I got a WhatsApp from a friend one morning. Peter had been found dead in his apartment. He was 39 years of age.

At that point he was very well up in his profession. The cause of death was cardio-respiratory arrest due to alcohol and prescribed drugs. Crudely put, he was comatose from drink and choked on his own vomit whilst he slept. Addiction kills.

I’ve often wondered what was the root cause? It was an open secret that he abused alcohol and drugs. Was the stress of working in a demanding role a contributory factor?

I can’t say because I didn’t know him well enough and in any event the last I saw of Peter was in 2013. Again, in the same pub as before. Drunk and high. The cause doesn’t matter now. He’s passed and at peace and that’s it.

I knew another man during my time in Galway. Johnny (not his real name) came from Galway city. Nice lad. Working class. No airs no graces. Straight up.

For over a decade I met him in a periodically sporadically fashion around the city. When I first met him he was in his mid 20s.

Around 2014, he was hospitalised for drug psychosis. His mind had broken with reality. He spent a lengthy period under the care of the psychiatric services in UCHG. His drug of choice? Crack cocaine.

I met him after he was discharged and he was unrecognisable. His weight had ballooned by 40kg. He had been prescribed large doses of anti-psychotics to bring him back to reality.

One of the unfortunate side effect of those class of therapeutics is weight gain. Gone was the handsome, charismatic lad. Cocaine addiction had left him a shell of his former self.

Aside from the physical and mental damage, it was clear spiritually that he was hanging by a thread. That spark. That will to live and meet the day and face life was dead.

Over the next few years we would cross paths across the city. Every time I would go out of my way to stop and chat. I would give him my phone number. He was always polite and thankful. And grateful.

In the back of my mind I always felt he would turn the corner. He’s too smart. Too streetwise.

Last Christmas, I went to Galway. I met an old friend, Mary. ‘How’s Johnny?’ I said. ‘Take a seat Richard.’ I sat. ‘He’s dead.’ He passed away in 2018.

She told me where he was buried. I went there the next day and, sure enough, there he was. I had to see it to believe it. He made it to the age of 32. Addiction kills.

It doesn’t really matter who or what you are. Cocaine kills.

In the last few years I’ve had two people contacting me in desperate state looking for cash to pay off drug debts. One friend needed €2,000 and other was €1,500.

On both occasions I refused. It wasn’t a road I wanted to go down. A drug debt isn’t the same as being in debt to AIB. If you can’t pay, you have to do some ‘work’. The threat of violence is always there. For the drug user and their family.

Political discourse in Ireland today is largely dominated by the following topics: Housing, Rent, Homelessness/Emergency Accommodation, the Health Service and Immigration.

There is little to no real debate about the rise in the use and availability of hard drugs. Particularly cocaine.

It’s become totally normalised across all sections of society. All of our cities, all of our towns and villages are awash with the stuff. It’s in every corner of our society. Working class, middle class, you name it.

I’m not sure what the solution is. Maybe the first step in the right direction would be to acknowledge that this country’s consumption of cocaine is obscene and is causing major societal problems.

At least acknowledge there is a problem, discuss it and thrash it out.

One salient frightening statistic is that Ireland is the fourth highest consumer of cocaine globally in relative terms after Spain, the Netherlands and Australia. Another is that 2.4% of Irish people have used cocaine in the last year. Personally, I’d have a hard time believing that one. It’s much higher. Pardon the pun.

The cocaine industry is big business. It’s estimated that roughly 3,000kgs of cocaine is imported every year and that corresponds to roughly €250-350 million at street level consumption. The imported cocaine is ‘pure’ and the drug which is sold on the street is ‘cut’.

The ‘cut’ cocaine that’s snorted in a pub toilet or at a house party is diluted as it goes further down the food chain. I think it’s fair to say that the dilution process, which involves adding mixing agents like baking soda, talcum powder, mannitol, glucose, etcetera, is not regulated by the Food and Safety Authority.

The current rate is between €80-€100 a gram. It’s an expensive little habit too you know.

If it’s so prevalent and ‘everybody’ is using it, as the statistics and anecdotal evidence suggests, why not legalise it?

In my opinion it would be a disaster. Since the ‘90s there have been over 500 gangland murders in the state, with 40% of them unsolved, witness intimidation being a major factor. Legalising cannabis never mind cocaine would totally overwhelm our health service. The health services, specifically the psychiatric services, currently can’t cope with the burden of people seeking help from cocaine addiction. Up to 13,104 people sought help for drug addiction in 2023. The highest ever. Between 2017 and 2023, people who sought help for cocaine addiction increased by 228% (powder) and 594% (crack).

That says it all really. Ireland’s love affair with cocaine isn’t going to stop anytime soon. It’s going to get worse, a lot worse, before it gets better. The tragedy of the unfulfilled potential and the waste of human life. The pain, the hurt and the grief.

This country is addicted. A person addicted to drugs has no soul.

A nation addicted has no soul.