Prevalence of Problem Drug Use In Ireland

Problem Drug Use

"A PDU is defined in Ireland as an ‘injecting drug user or long duration/regular user of opiates, cocaine and/or amphetamines’ (EMCDDA 2004).
"It is not possible to estimate the number of injecting drug users or PDUs, apart from opiate users, in Ireland as the National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS) does not use a unique identifier.
"A national 3-source capture-recapture (CRC) study, to provide statistically valid estimates of the prevalence of opiate drug use in the national population, was commissioned by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs (NACD) and undertaken in 2001 and 2006. The 2006 study (Kelly, Alan, et al. 2009) indicated that use had increased since the 2001 survey (Kelly, Alan, et al. 2003). There were 11,807 known opiate users in 2006. The major expansion of the national methadone treatment programme between 2001 and 2006 was the main reason for the inflation of the figures. There is some doubt over the estimate produced of a possible further 8,983 opiate users who had not come into contact with any of the drug treatment services, hospital in-patient services or the Gardaí.
"The following were among the trends (2001–2006) seen in the study results:
"? the rate of opiate use among females and males aged 15–24 decreased, indicating a significant reduction in the number of young people commencing opiate use,
"? an increase in opiate use outside of Dublin, and
"? a higher proportion of opiate users in treatment in Dublin than elsewhere, reflecting the more recent spread of opiate use outside Dublin and the later development of treatment services."