Heroin problem in Cork. Just how bad is it?

star.chaser · 25-09-2009 10:16AM #1

Grew up in Cork but moved away from there 7 years ago. Heroin was almost unheard of when i lived there. It was all Coke and Yolks. Just how bad is the Heroin problem?

Dankoozy · 25-09-2009 11:12AM

I just injected heroin into my schlong

dahamsta · 25-09-2009 11:26AM

I inject heroin in everyone else's shlong.

star.chaser · 25-09-2009 12:16PM

it's a schlong way to tipperary..... it's a schlong way........

hey, whats schlong with yooooouuuuuu... your looking kind......

miss_shadow · 25-09-2009 02:55PM

...as you can see it's quite bad

grenache · 26-09-2009 10:41AM

One small step towards eliminating the heroin problem in Cork would be for all shops within a one mile radius of the city centre to stop selling tinfoil and all chocolate bars with thick tinfoil wrapping (e.g. Cadburys Turkish Delight, Animal Bars). A very drastic solution yes but one which would see immediate results.

ParkRunner · 26-09-2009 10:50AM

grenache wrote: »

One small step towards eliminating the heroin problem in Cork would be for all shops within a one mile radius of the city centre to stop selling tinfoil and all chocolate bars with thick tinfoil wrapping (e.g. Cadburys Turkish Delight, Animal Bars). A very drastic solution yes but one which would see immediate results.

Where there's a will there's a way Im afraid, only a minor obstacle to someone desperate for a fix!

minidazzler · 26-09-2009 03:37PM

It's quite bad in cork at the Moment. Think Dublin in the 80's and early 90's bad.

I know 3 people who have OD'd one of them twice and still smoke it regularily.

dahamsta · 26-09-2009 03:38PM

EF wrote: »

Where there's a will there's a way Im afraid, only a minor obstacle to someone desperate for a fix!

Ah come on, that post can't have been serious.

grenache · 29-09-2009 08:32AM

dahamsta wrote: »

Ah come on, that post can't have been serious.

well if you know how heroin is smoked, you will know my suggestion is no joke!

dahamsta · 29-09-2009 12:23PM

grenache wrote: »

well if you know how heroin is smoked, you will know my suggestion is no joke!

So you were seriously suggesting that "all shops within a one mile radius of the city centre to stop selling tinfoil and all chocolate bars with thick tinfoil wrapping", because of a heroin problem 99% of Corkonians will never encounter in any way, shape or form?

The heroin problem might not be a joke - or it might, I didn't even know it existed until this thread popped up - but your suggestion is. Put it in a letter to the Sun, they'll love it, it's about their level.

DamienH · 29-09-2009 12:27PM

Once this proposed solution is brought in surely it'll just drive junkies out into the suburbs like some kind of maddened, tin-foil crazed junkie buffalo? Then they'll have to be herded up (possibly by cowboys) and driven into the loch whereupon they'll drown..... hang on, thus solving Cork's junkie buffalo problem. Give this man/woman a seat on the council!!!!

DePurpereWolf · 29-09-2009 05:16PM

I had somebody at my door asking money for a drug addict rehabilitation centre in Mayfield (or Blackpool) anyway, he reckons he'd have 20 to 30 harddrugs addicts in at a time.

So I'd say it's a big problem

dahamsta · 29-09-2009 05:27PM

120,000 / 30 = 4,000

Illkillya · 29-09-2009 05:43PM

I agree with grenache, banning turkish delight bars will solve the heroin problem.

dahamsta · 29-09-2009 05:47PM

See, you'd be banned Turkish Delight AND Crunchies, which is a favourite combo of mine. I can't in good conscience agree to that!

You might as well just ban Tayto and Dairy Milk ffs.

grenache · 29-09-2009 08:56PM

dahamsta wrote: »

So you were seriously suggesting that "all shops within a one mile radius of the city centre to stop selling tinfoil and all chocolate bars with thick tinfoil wrapping", because of a heroin problem 99% of Corkonians will never encounter in any way, shape or form?

The heroin problem might not be a joke - or it might, I didn't even know it existed until this thread popped up - but your suggestion is. Put it in a letter to the Sun, they'll love it, it's about their level.

99% eh? You're plucking figures out of the sky there. I never said it was the answer - if you read my post you will see that i said it was ''one small step''. We had a lot of junkies hanging around the shop i worked in on Washington St. Us and a couple of other shops in the area decided to stop selling these confectionery products. Many shops now have tinfoil behind the counter, making it difficult for such an item to be shoplifted, which is a common habit amongst heroin users. We noticed a significant decrease in the numbers of these junkies in the area after these measures were put in place. You can deride my idea if you want. But i didn't see you coming up with one. Until you do, pipe down :pac:

Illkillya · 29-09-2009 10:08PM

Prime Time is talking about Heroin now, giving statistics about usage outside Dublin... they looked at the figures for 2002-2007 and Cork was not named as a badly affected area (like the midlands, north east, and south east). It does appear to be a new thing since 2007, so I wonder what the statistics are like now... (update, Cork guy is talking now)

dahamsta · 29-09-2009 10:48PM

grenache wrote: »

99% eh? You're plucking figures out of the sky there.

At least I've provided a figure - which I would guess is actually much, much higher - you've provided anecdotal evidence of a tiny-scale study to support a vastly expanded "one small step". (Comparing it to man walking on the moon might be overreaching just a tad btw.)

I don't have any ideas to deal with a problem that a tiny minority of Star readers want to screech about, but I reserve the right to deride any that are frankly idiotic. Put your idea in an email and send it to the aforementioned, that's where it belongs.

grenache · 30-09-2009 12:22AM

dahamsta wrote: »

At least I've provided a figure - which I would guess is actually much, much higher - you've provided anecdotal evidence of a tiny-scale study to support a vastly expanded "one small step". (Comparing it to man walking on the moon might be overreaching just a tad btw.)

I don't have any ideas to deal with a problem that a tiny minority of Star readers want to screech about, but I reserve the right to deride any that are frankly idiotic. Put your idea in an email and send it to the aforementioned, that's where it belongs.

Anyone can provide a figure, what does that prove? Anecdotal or not, the measures the traders put in place to counteract the presence of junkies in the vicinity worked.

dahamsta · 30-09-2009 02:25AM

What did the Cork lad have to say Illkillya? Be nice to see some numbers on this, there hasn't been a single verifiable fact so far in this thread.

grenache wrote: »

Anecdotal or not, the measures the traders put in place to counteract the presence of junkies in the vicinity worked.

With respect grenache, if it had been proven to have worked, it wouldn't be anecdotal.

If he or she wants to take those measures then off with them, but to suggest what they did in my quote earlier is, again, Star/Sun/Mirror level overreaction. Drug problems are invariably localised, and I'm pretty sure there aren't hordes of heroin addicts chasing the dragon in the aisles of, for example, Driscolls in Ballinlough.

I might add that Cork had a drug problem in the 80s, and the city doesn't seem to have sunk back into the marsh in the meantime.

adam

Illkillya · 30-09-2009 10:12AM

Can't remember the stats, but he said when he came to Cork in 1999, he previously worked in heroin cities like Liverpool and Edinburgh, and the only heroin addicts that he saw in Cork were the occasional tourists from England/Dublin a couple of times a year. Now he sees a new one every day. Deaths... used to be one in ten years, now it is 10(?) in 24 months. Described it as an epidemic. True, statistically it's not a massive problem as yet, but it's more to do with the spike (no pun intended) in usage. While it is a problem that has been festering for years in other parts of the country, it definitely seems to be new problem growing very rapidly at the moment in Cork.

dahamsta · 30-09-2009 10:21AM

Thanks for that Illkillya. Who was he, do you remember?

Illkillya · 30-09-2009 11:17AM

Think he was a doctor, can't remember where he works.

Flamed Diving · 30-09-2009 03:18PM

Nonsense. If you want to see a junkie problem, try strolling around O'Connell Street in Dublin. It's like 28 Days Later. Patrick Street is like Amish town, in comparison.

Auvers · 30-09-2009 03:24PM

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Nonsense. If you want to see a junkie problem, try strolling around O'Connell Street in Dublin. It's like 28 Days Later. Patrick Street is like Amish town, in comparison.

aye or else take a stroll down by Custom house quay some fine specimens around that part of town

Bill-e · 30-09-2009 03:51PM

what a dose.

Illkillya · 30-09-2009 08:44PM

That's beside the point... the problem is not the number of heroin users in Cork, it is the sharpness of the increase in that number. It is a new problem, and by the sounds of it we are near the bottom of a steep curve. Now is the time for it to be acknowledged and addressed.

Corkfeen · 30-09-2009 09:13PM

Wasn't there a problem with heroin addicts by centra on oliver plunkett street recently? Fairly sure I heard something about gardaí watching area for dealers etc.

Trojan911 · 30-09-2009 10:07PM

Corkfeen wrote: »

Wasn't there a problem with heroin addicts by centra on oliver plunkett street recently? Fairly sure I heard something about gardaí watching area for dealers etc.

There is a span new CCTV camera mounted on a pole at the next junction just above that shop.... Strangely enough it is pointing at the said shop.

There were some right scummers sitting begging in the doorway next to the shop up to recent times..... Here are some covert images taken a "few" months ago...

Here is what happened when one of them uttered an obscenity to a nice policeman..... :pac:

CB19Kevo · 30-09-2009 10:21PM

Looks terrible to have people in that condition on the street.
Down by FAS and across from the college of comm are rough now,

Heroin problem in Cork. Just how bad is it?

Comments