'Young people in Donegal can easily spend €300, €400 or €500 a week on cocaine'

There is increasing evidence to show that the use of cocaine across Inishowen is spiralling out of control, with more and more young people becoming dependent on illegal drugs.

A local addiction counsellor has revealed how cocaine use continues to “increase rapidly”, particularly among those under the age of 40.

The drug is widely available in all areas of Inishowen, as ever-increasing numbers of young users and dealers appear before our courts.

Stephen McLaughlin, Director of Clinical Services at the White Oaks Rehab Centre in Muff, below, warns that on the current trajectory, cocaine will soon overtake alcohol in terms of addiction problems here.

“Cocaine use has certainly mushroomed recently,” he says. “I’ve been working here more than 12 years and I’ve noticed, along with my colleagues, a very recognisable increase in the number of people coming in with cocaine issues.”

“It’s almost reached the stage now, that with anyone under th age of 40 to 45, we would actually expect them to present with cocaine use problems.”

White Oaks was set up almost a quarter of a century ago in the main to tackle alcohol misuse – and alcohol remains a major issue there – but 40 per cent of all clients are now presenting with drug addiction issues, almost always cocaine.

“The majority of people who come into White Oaks for addiction treatment would present here with an alcohol problem. It still remains the largest or the most widely-used substance that people get into difficulty with, as regards addiction,” Stephen explains.

“However over more recent years, the use of cocaine has amplified quite rapidly. That’s what we would have noticed here in the treatment centre, particularly among younger people.”

Cocaine addiction can develop much more rapidly than alcohol, often with devastating impacts for those on the wrong end of it.

“With cocaine, the addiction seems to happen in a much more rapid fashion,” Stephen explains. “With a person who’s drinking, it may take a few years for them to reach the point of being addicted or where their dependency gets stronger and stronger.

“Whereas with cocaine, what we would notice is that people seem to become dependent and addicted to it within a significantly shorter period of time.

“The experience of using cocaine is more intense and therefore people seem to get hooked on it in a shorter space of time.

“With the use of alcohol, when people sit down to drink, it may take a few drinks before they begin to get that feeling. But with cocaine, they’re getting an instant buzz. The sensation is much more intense.”

The late Fr Neal Carlin helped to establish White Oaks in 2001

Stephen worries that cocaine is more readily available locally than ever before, and its use has become somewhat normalised as a consequence.

For someone to snort Class A drugs on a night out in Inishowen is no longer considered shocking in the way that it once would have been.

“We seem to be awash with cocaine at the moment, and therefore people are using it much more. It’s right across the social spectrum. The availability and I suppose the acceptability, of cocaine, has increased greatly,” the White Oaks Clinical Director says.

“It seems to be very prevalent. Even in rural Ireland and in small rural communities here, cocaine is readily available.”

“Sometimes we have this idea that it’s big dealers and all of that. But I get the impression that most people get their cocaine from somebody they know in their own social circle. Obviously, it comes in from elsewhere, but it’s people locally who are involved in the supply of it.”

What starts out as recreational use now and again, often quickly spirals out of control for the curious would-be users, leading to a whole host of associated problems, as Stephen cautions.

“In the context of Inishowen and Donegal, a lot of the people who would be using cocaine are young people who are perhaps in well-paid jobs,” he says. ‘They are earning big money and therefore have a lot of disposable income, which means that they can easily spend €300, €400 or €500 in a week or over a weekend on the drug.”

“Then, of course, once they become more and more addicted to it, they’re obviously losing control. It means that they get into difficulties because they run-up drug debts and that creates a whole other set of problems for them.”

Cocaine users quickly develop a tolerance, needing more and more of it for a fix, to satisfy their growing addiction.

“They want to use more and more of it. Often they will then move on to use other types of drugs to get that buzz,” Stephen says.

“And then obviously, if someone is using cocaine and spending a lot of money on it, that creates real problems. If they’re in a relationship or they’ve got other responsibilities, they find it very difficult to hold down a job. They’re not meeting their usual bills and things.”

The health issues with alcohol abuse are well-documented but cocaine brings a whole new set of worries, including mental health problems, as Stephen further emphasises.

“With cocaine, the issues would probably centre mainly around mental health, where people develop significant mental health problems such as paranoia, and they find it very difficult to focus.

“We do have people in the centre who have developed nasal difficulties, their septum is damaged and things like that. But in terms of health, it would generally be mental health. I would say that with cocaine, mental health problems will mean that a person’s quality of life will deteriorate pretty rapidly once they become dependent on it.”

There’s also the added danger with cocaine that its users simply don’t know what they’re ingesting when they buy substances from illicit dealers. Stephen highlights some of the perils: “Cocaine is a psychoactive substance. People want to change their mood and I suppose in that sense it is similar to alcohol in a way.

“The major difference though is that alcohol usually comes in a bottle or out of a keg and it does have some quality control and regulation, if you like. But the cocaine that people are using has none of that.

“It’s usually cut and diluted by all sorts of strange substances. I remember about five years ago being at a conference in Dublin and I was told that when they analysed cocaine used on the streets of Dublin, its purity level was probably less than 10 per cent. This means that 90 per cent of the stuff is made up of other compounds and all sorts of things.

Using cocaine is clearly against the law and those who partake open themselves up to the possibility of prosecution and court proceedings, with more and more cases coming before the judge here in Inishowen.

Stephen warns that there’s a very murky underworld of criminality beneath the apparent glamour of getting high on a night out.

“You’re destroying your own life and you’re destroying other peoples’ lives because there’s a whole chain of people involved in this,” he says.

“People who are using it have to bear in mind that when they use cocaine, they’re taking part in something that has a chain of misery. That’s what you’re actually supporting.” There’s also always that risk that if you’re caught, you’ll have a track record in court and a criminal conviction of some sort.”

Cocaine and alcohol abuse almost always go hand-in-hand, as Stephen’s years of experience helping people through rehabilitation have shown him.

“When people develop a problem with cocaine, quite often their use of cocaine comes first in the context of their drinking. So they’re out drinking and then they want to keep the energy levels up, so they use cocaine in order to do so and in order to continue drinking.”

He says binge drinking has also become an increasing problem of late: “It would seem that with the amount of alcohol being consumed by young people in their late teens or early 20s, the amount may not be as high as in the past but the difference is that they are drinking more in a binge-type fashion now.

“Rather than going out, say, for a couple of nights over the weekend; instead they may not drink for a number of weeks or whatever, but then when they do go out to drink, they do so in a binge fashion. They would consume a lot all at once, and that leads to its own problems.”

“So alcohol is still very much a major drug of choice if you like. It still creates a lot of difficulties in the lives of people, regardless of what age they are.”

Like all rehabilitation centres, White Oaks preaches total abstinence from all mood-altering substances.

“Our approach is certainly total abstinence for anyone who has developed addiction in their life. Because we basically recognise that the addiction, while it’s to a substance, it’s also the whole behaviour. People are using alcohol or drugs very often as a coping mechanism, which is really dysfunctional,” Stephen explains.

“Therefore, if they manage to get off, say, cocaine, but continue to use alcohol, then there’s a high likelihood that their use of alcohol will become problematic because they’re using it for the same purpose. They’re using it to numb themselves, to avoid dealing with problems, to try to manage their day-to-day ups and downs.

“We try to always emphasise that once you’ve developed addiction, you can’t just simply replace one thing with another. Just getting rid of the cocaine isn’t going to make the drinking any more manageable.”

Stephen says alcohol is still the most-used, and abused, drug here but that looks set to change – and very soon: “Definitely the cocaine issue is something that’s of great concern to us. But alcohol, yes, remains probably for 60 per cent of the people coming in here [White Oaks]. “Although if the current trend continues, then it’ll be the other way around in 10 or 20 years’ time. It’ll be 65 per cent of people addicted to drugs by then.”