Crack cocaine in the Dublin region - Health Research Board

But you know it would be about kind of – people would binge it would be like a mini-holidaynearly. Or they would go out and sit in a house where they could get it or buy it and washit up and would have a certain amount of money and would blow it and then that’s it theyhave to go back to work again. So, most of the people that are doing that kind of work forthemselves you know they’re self-employed or would have people working for them and theywould get away with kind of being able to take a couple of days off without being noticed… about 20% would have their own businesses. So, they’re like painters and decorators,contractors, gardening, stuff like that.Finglas, drug-treatment service (October 2007)Individuals in recovery from heroin addiction, who may be receiving training to providethem with skills to re-enter the job market, risk expulsion if their crack use is detectedor if use is prompting disruptive behaviour during training.She would have exhibited quite a lot of aggression and you know the usual problems thatare associated with crack, so she would have really stood out on the project a year and ahalf ago. And for that reason and a lot of other reasons, we had to part company with her,because her use was just too out of control. We aren’t a service that could manage somebodyin a full crack relapse.north-inner city, education and training programme (November 2007)7.4 Implications for the familyAddiction to crack cocaine will impact not only on the user but on the user’srelationships and responsibilities:It’s replaced every relationship that they have and every kind of meaningful thing that they’veever had and all they are left with is rocks of crack.Finglas, drug-treatment service (October 2007)Three of the female users and one male user interviewed described the effect that theircurrent or former crack habit and associated criminal activities had on their family,particularly their children. One user who dealt cocaine and heroin to fund his crack useupset his family life regularly because of his involvement with drugs and the attentionit inevitably received from law-enforcement authorities:There was tough love where I would have been thrown out of the house, you know and I’vecome to… I’d be on my knees and they’d take me back in, you know. And I would have been ina relationship, had children, but like everything else, you know, the drugs came first. My partnerleft me then and my children for a normal life where I would have brought them through chaos,house getting raided, partner getting stopped in her car and getting searched by the armeddetectives, you know, with my children in the car, kind of, not to teach me a lesson, you know,but to [say] – we’re watching you. That’s what it seemed like to me, you know.Former user, unspecified location (October 2007)Crack cocaine in the Dublin region: an evidence base for a crack cocaine strategy81