Crack cocaine in the Dublin region - Health Research Board

Many services offer a combination of these therapies, or acted as a link to providers ofsuch services (such as counselling). Overall, drug-treatment services were enthusiasticabout the benefits of an approach which encompasses both counselling andcomplementary therapies. Acupuncture was thought to be very useful in calming clientswho presented in an agitated or chaotic state and it offered an attractive incentive forusers to attend services regularly:It’s not realistic to expect them to sit in the room with you for an hour, and that. So, we wouldhave sort of a holistic side in a sense. We have three of our staff trained up in acupuncture, sowe’d use acupuncture which helps in another way. Because again what I found is that clientsdon’t want to get into massive one-to-ones. They just want to find a way like to chill out andcome back down, to take some kind of edge off their comedown. And the acupuncture is agreat tool to be able to use because you can get it kind of in the door and maybe for 5 or 10minutes you get to have some kind of intervention…Clondalkin, drug-treatment service (October 2007)Acupuncture doesn’t cure anything. But for some people it works very, very well. It doesn’tdo anything for other people. You know? And what I would be suggesting is that if you havegood holistic people that can talk the talk, you know the word that they use is … placebo,placebo effect you know in other words if they feel it’s going to do something for them, thenit will. It also gives people a feeling that there’s something for them when they’re going there.They get something out of it, they feel good about it.Tallaght, drug-treatment services (October 2007)Four services reported providing starter or welcome packs to users, which includecontact information for different services, relaxation materials such as lavender oil, arelaxation CD and other products. The philosophy underpinning the welcome pack isto provide users with support tools even if they do not present to services on a regularbasis:So, people are finding bits in this pack you know that’ll work for them, so we find this is areally useful tool ... because if somebody comes in you might not see them again. They mightbe really paranoid, they might go out thinking I’m a head banger. They might think they don’tlike the place, or people saw them coming in you know what I mean, but they go away withthis thing that it looks like they’re going to college, you know what I mean, so they go awaywith it and they can kind of, later on they might pick up the card or play the CD…that’s howit works.Ballyfermot, drug-treatment service (October 2007)Crack cocaine in the Dublin region: an evidence base for a crack cocaine strategy93