Crack cocaine in the Dublin region - Health Research Board

I know one lad I think he’s on five to six hundred quid of crack and four to five hundred quidof heroin, every day. That’s a thousand euro you’ve to steal every day so he basically has arucksack on his back and he walks with that 24 hours a day.north-inner city, outreach services focus group (September 2007)Crack? Yes we’ve one individual who went through 120 thousand in a year – obviously aclaim and he did it, just smoked it until the cows came home.Tallaght, drug-treatment service (October 2007)Purity of crackIn 2003, the Forensic Science Laboratory and the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU)undertook a project to screen cocaine seizures for crack. As noted above, out of 122seizure samples tested, only 4 were found to have contained crack cocaine (Raggett etal. 2003) However, as has been also mentioned, purity testing for drugs is not routinelyundertaken by the Forensic Science Laboratory. It has been noted that cocaine purityis lower in Ireland than anywhere else in Europe (Connolly 2005). In 2004, the averagepurity of cocaine analysed was 23%. Forensic analysis of possible crack cocaineseizures could have proven useful to this study.3.7 Key findings• Gardaí identified approximately 17 individuals dealing in crack during 2005/2006.• Despite targeted Garda operations in 2005/2006, the north-inner city remains theprimary crack market in Dublin. Of the 24 services that had treated clients forcrack use, 10 confirmed a particular north-inner city location as one where theirclients bought the drug, and 5 of the 10 crack users interviewed also identifiedthis area as one of the locations where they bought crack.• According to the data available, prepared crack is also available in Balbriggan,Ballymun, Blanchardstown, Clondalkin, Coolock and Malahide Road since 2006.• Findings indicate that crack markets operating outside Dublin city centre exhibitclosed-market characteristics, i.e. dealers will not sell drugs to strangers andexchanges are likely to be arranged using a mobile phone.• In response to surveillance by gardaí, a number of inner-city dealers takeprecautions such as refusing to deal to unknown buyers, arranging exchangesusing mobile phone contact only, and directing buyers to specific meeting pointsoutside the inner-city for an exchange.• It is reported that only a small number crack dealers operating in local areas useyoung people (who may not themselves be crack users) as sellers or older usersto distribute the drug in different communities.50 Crack cocaine in the Dublin region: an evidence base for a crack cocaine strategy