Opinion

Allison Morris: Recent deaths don't tell true story of drug misuse

At one time a spate of death could be linked to a 'bad batch' of drugs. However, that's now rarely the case
At one time a spate of death could be linked to a 'bad batch' of drugs. However, that's now rarely the case At one time a spate of death could be linked to a 'bad batch' of drugs. However, that's now rarely the case

I WAS standing in a queue in a sports shop a while ago and three lads behind me were having a conversation about where to go after one paid for his trainers: "I just want to get a pint and a few blues," he said.

Blues being a reference to the fake Diazapam style drug that is smuggled into Northern Ireland every week by the bucket load, along with drugs such as Lyrica and Tramadol.

Mainly from Asia through the postal system and then sold on the street for as little as 50p a tablet.

It is one of the drugs linked to the increased numbers of deaths that have occurred in Northern Ireland a figure that is increasing week on week.

The number of drugs related deaths recorded by the coroner has doubled in the last two years.

There have been 10 such deaths recorded since the start of this year alone.

And those figures don't tell the true story, for many suicides can also be directly linked to drug misuse.

The artificial high from cheap and untested drugs followed by an unbearable low that has stolen the lives of countless young people in the last 10 years.

Last year there were 1,000 emergency admissions to Belfast's hospitals for intentional and accidental drug overdoses.

Doctors have said they are struggling to cope with the need for treatment services. Services that at times of budget uncertainty are being cut rather than increased to meet demand.

At one time a spate of death could be linked to a 'bad batch' of drugs.

However, that's now rarely the case.

Instead deaths are not linked by age or social circle and not even by the same drug, they are deaths linked to a culture change in how drugs are viewed and used.

A young lad in a queue speaking quite openly about his drug use as if it were the most normal thing in the world, because for him it is normal.

The five recent deaths, thought to included a beautiful 16-year-old girl, Chloe Hutchings, have no link other than illegal prescription drugs are thought to have been involved.

Addiction or abuse of prescription medication was once considered a 'housewife' problem.

Over prescribing of depression medication for frazzled nerves of mothers, often living through postnatal depression, poverty or the impact of the Troubles leaving parts of the North with an unenviable reputation when it came to the numbers of 'addicts'.

Then came rave culture and recreational drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine flooded Northern Ireland and drug use was no longer such a big taboo.

Teenagers of my generation, who had grown up in a bleak, grey, violent city flooded nightclubs and illegal raves where religion and politics were never mentioned and love trumped hate.

Not even the threat of paramilitary reprisals from groups such as Direct Action Against Drugs could hold back the tide.

The Dublin heroin epidemic was often talked about, but despite being just 100 miles down the road few thought such a problem could ever cross the border.

My own teenage years now a distant memory. I am now a mother of three young people living in a Northern Ireland that has changed beyond recognition.

In the main, that change is for the better and my children were able to avail of all the opportunities that a post peace society had to offer.

But having spent the last few years reporting on the drug epidemic, I'm also aware their generation face problems I never did.

My heart aches for the mothers who have lost their children, many of whom spent months and even years knocking doors and begging health agencies for help for their child's addiction.

Help that never came on time.

It really is time to take the head out of the sand and teach about the impact of drug misuse and specifically the potentially deadly consequence of prescription drug misuse, to our young people at school age.

It's not like the evidence of an epidemic doesn't exist, it's there to see in the pictures of the victims and the words of their grieving families.

If we can't protect our next generation then what is the point of this peace process, what kind of society are we building when young people, some still barely more than children, are dying from an entirely preventable problem.