DUBLIN — Ireland is planning to open heroin injection centers sometime next year as a way to help fight drug addiction and misuse.
It’s not only heroin that Ireland is making reforms for; Ireland’s minister for drug strategy, Aodhan O Riordain, plans to also decriminalize small amounts of cannabis, cocaine and heroin for personal use.
The belief is that the injection centers will provide users a safe place — the centers will be medically supervised — to use the drug, the Irish Times reported. Heroin users who inject the drug on the street face many risks, such as infection and the increased possibility of overdose.
The centers can also help users seek treatment. Ireland has the highest number of heroin users in all of Europe, according to the EMCDDA, and its rate of drug-related deaths is three times higher than the European average.
O Riordain does not believe the heroin injection centers will encourage drug use to run rampant.
“These are clinically controlled environments which aim to engage hard-to-reach populations,” O Riordain told the Irish Times. “Research has shown that the use of supervised injecting centers is associated with self-reported reductions in injecting risk behaviors.”
The centers should open sometime next year, first in Dublin, then in other Irish cities.