Crack cocaine in the Dublin region - Health Research Board

• Participants reported that, in response to increased surveillance from gardaí,dealers were carrying small amounts of crack to exchanges with users; depositingthe drug in a hidden area for users to collect (instead of making an exchange);sending potential buyers to different areas of the city rather than making anexchange in the established city-centre market; and refusing to deal to unknownclients.• Drug-distribution systems adapt quickly, so that drug suppliers who have beenarrested are quickly replaced. For example, Operation Clean Street was regardedas a success from a law-enforcement point of view, leading to over 1,100individual convictions for supply of heroin. However, the success of OperationClean Street raised the issue of the so-called ‘Water Bed Effect’ whereby drugactivity was displaced to other locations around the city.• There is growing evidence that partnership working between all stakeholders,including law-enforcement agencies, accommodation and treatment services andlocal communities, offers the most sustainable method of responding to streetleveldrug markets.• Law enforcement can concentrate its effects in specific locations at particulartimes and, consequently, it is uniquely placed to prevent or disrupt emerging drugmarkets.• Limited sources of crack supply in Dublin may have contributed to the stable highprice of crack relative to other drugs.• The price of crack may be a key factor in any potential escalation in its use.Demand is often inelastic for problematic drug users, relative to moderateor recreational users, and increased prices may simply lead them to engagein greater levels of crime in order to pay the higher prices. However, thisstudy found some evidence that the high price of crack does deter use amongindividuals who are not willing to engage in criminal activity.• Effective intervention strategies may be those which combine attempts to disruptlocal markets, thus rendering them less predictable to both buyers and sellers,with attempts to divert drug offenders into treatment services.• A report on a pilot arrest referral scheme in Dublin’s north-inner city raiseda number of questions about the efficacy of the model being applied becausethe take up for the scheme was quite low. Data from the NDTRS also suggest alow rate of referral of crack users from criminal justice agencies to the healthservices.Crack cocaine in the Dublin region: an evidence base for a crack cocaine strategy107