Ireland has the third highest number of drug-related deaths in Europe.
Title: New report reveals the latest drug trends in Europe
Link: http://www.hrb.ie/index.php?id=1000&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=530
Summary: The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) will publish the European drug report 2014: trends and developments today. This report summarises the latest trends across the 28 EU member states, and Norway and Turkey. Accompanying the report is a series of online interactive Perspectives on Drugs (PODs) providing deeper insights into important issues.
The HRB compares the situation in Ireland with the European findings.
Emcdda director Wolfgang Gotz said he was “particularly concerned” at these drugs, where a few grams could produce 10,000 doses. They can be imported into Europe in small packets making it very difficult to detect, he said.
Title: New report reveals the latest drug trends in Europe
Link: http://www.hrb.ie/index.php?id=1000&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=530
Summary: The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) will publish the European drug report 2014: trends and developments today. This report summarises the latest trends across the 28 EU member states, and Norway and Turkey. Accompanying the report is a series of online interactive Perspectives on Drugs (PODs) providing deeper insights into important issues.
The HRB compares the situation in Ireland with the European findings.
Emcdda director Wolfgang Gotz said he was “particularly concerned” at these drugs, where a few grams could produce 10,000 doses. They can be imported into Europe in small packets making it very difficult to detect, he said.
He said he was “deeply concerned” at the threat posed to the Early Warning System, and the “inadequate resources” given to both the Emcdda and national bodies to enable them to keep up with new drugs. “New psychoactive drugs are the most exploding area we have,” he said. “I don’t know how we can continue if we don’t get additional resources.”
Mr Gotz, who is leaving his post after nine years, said European politicians were “not very interested” in this area, even though people rated drugs as an important issue".
The figure comes as Gardaí and health officials investigate another fatality linked to rogue ecstasy tablets.
www.drugs.ie & www.drugfreeworld.org & www.drugscope.org.uk & www.garda.ie
www.drugs.ie & www.drugfreeworld.org & www.drugscope.org.uk & www.garda.ie
Ireland has a drug death rate four times that of the EU average and is only behind Estonia and Norway for fatalities per head of population.
The statistics emerge as a 22-year-old man died after taking an ecstasy-type drug at a party in Donegal on Monday, which has also left another 22-year-old man fighting for his life.
While gardaí are awaiting toxicology results on the pills — brown tablets known as ‘Double Cross’ — they suspect it could be another death linked to powerful amphetamines PMA and PMMA.
Gardaí said three deaths in recent weeks have been connected to these drugs. Another four deaths are also under investigation.
“PMA deaths are coming up more and more and in different types of pills,” said a garda source. He estimated that the rate of PMA deaths, compared to MDMA deaths, would be roughly 10:1.
Garda sources said they have not seen the brown Double Cross tablets before. The other deaths in recent weeks have been linked to green ‘Rolex’ and ‘Apple’ tablets and white ‘Mitsubishi’ pills.
The Donegal death comes as the 2014 report of the EU drugs agency shows Ireland has 70.5 drug deaths per million people. This compares to an EU average of 17.1 per million, just behind Norway (76), which is well behind Estonia (191).
In contrast, the UK has a drug-death rate of 38 per million, Belgium 17, the Netherlands 10 and France 7, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
Suzi Lyons of the Health Research Board said Ireland’s system was “seen as the gold standard in Europe” in terms of its accuracy and comprehensive nature and that this “could be one reason we feature so high on the list”.
The Donegal death follows three confirmed deaths in the past two months to PMA/PMMA: A 16-year-old boy in Waterford on Monday; a 26-year-old woman in Tullamore, Co Offaly, in April; and a 23-year-old man in Youghal in March.
UPDATE: ADDITION:
A record number of new synthetic drugs are being detected in Europe — but stretched agencies are unable to keep up with the dizzying array of substances because of budget cuts.
A record number of new synthetic drugs are being detected in Europe — but stretched agencies are unable to keep up with the dizzying array of substances because of budget cuts.
The EU drugs agency said police and health bodies were also facing a “game changer”, with some chemicals capable of being trafficked in small packages but able to produce tens of thousands of doses.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (Emcdda) said that 81 new psychoactive substances were detected by the EU Early Warning System in 2013.
Scientific director Paul Griffiths said this was a “record number” and compared to 73 in 2012, 49 in 2011 and 41 in 2009.
He said that a further 37 new substances had been detected so far this year.
Although Ireland delivered a blow to the trade in many of these drugs — often known as legal highs — with legislation in 2010 effectively banning head shops, much of the trade has shifted online and onto the street.
The Emcdda said 650 websites were selling these substances into Europe, compared with just 170 in 2010. The drugs were also being traded on so-called darknets, which are underground online networks permitting anonymous communication. www.emcdda.europa.eu
The Emcdda said 650 websites were selling these substances into Europe, compared with just 170 in 2010. The drugs were also being traded on so-called darknets, which are underground online networks permitting anonymous communication. www.emcdda.europa.eu
Roumen Sedefov, head of the agency’s new drugs section, said users did not know what they were taking: “There is little knowledge about new drugs. Some of them are potentially very dangerous in terms of toxicity. There is no history of human use for many of them, no clinical studies and limited pharmacology.”
He said there was particular concern about four new substances that they had analysed: 251-NBOMe (which mimics LSD); AH-7921 (which mimics heroin); MDPV (mimics cocaine); and methoxetamine (mimics ketamine).
Between them they are associated in 135 deaths in Europe. Some are active at very low doses and the margin between recreational use and overdose is “very minimal”, said Mr Sedefov.
Emcdda director Wolfgang Gotz said he was “particularly concerned” at these drugs, where a few grams could produce 10,000 doses. They can be imported into Europe in small packets making it very difficult to detect, he said.
He said he was “deeply concerned” at the threat posed to the Early Warning System, and the “inadequate resources” given to both the Emcdda and national bodies to enable them to keep up with new drugs. “New psychoactive drugs are the most exploding area we have,” he said. “I don’t know how we can continue if we don’t get additional resources.”
Mr Gotz, who is leaving his post after nine years, said European politicians were “not very interested” in this area, even though people rated drugs as an important issue.
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INFO: LINK:
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INFO: LINK:
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_(file_
sharing) Cached History . Originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for security purposes, darknets were ... - filesharefreak.com/2007/12/16/darknets-
private-internet... Cached
(Freenet / WASTE / Onionland / I2P / anoNet Darknets) Well, if you’ve come this far, you can see that we’re treading into some pretty deep water …
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