Crack cocaine in west Tallaght: 'This epidemic is so new, and came so fast'

• Author: Kitty Holland
• Published date: 08 November 2021
• Publication title: Irish Times: Web Edition Articles (Dublin, Ireland)

Of the 14 crack users engaging with the Jobstown Assisting Drug Dependency (JADD) outreach team, six were women. Over the course of three hours, team leader Pat Clifford and support worker Christine Ashmore brought hampers of hot food and non-perishables, packed up with crack pipes and injecting paraphernalia, to people in their homes, couch-surfing, in tents or begging.

"The majority we knew from coming to the harm-reduction service," says Clifford. "We maintain the connections, may make more, and perhaps the connections turn into something else, where they might want to go into treatment."

The first person we meet is Marie (38), whose "level of coping has fallen through the floor", says Clifford. Outside her front door are about 20 full refuse sacks, piled high and putrefying. "She has more in her apartment, can't afford to have them collected. All her money is going on crack," he explains. "Tonight she is looking for some hot food and two pipes."

Marie tells us: "I'm having trouble with the bins. They're too expensive to be honest, with the crack. I get €203 a week. The crack is about about €40 a day. There's no food. I am trying to get clean but it's some struggle. I'm not allowed near my ma's because I was robbing them. I suffer with depression and anxiety. I don't move out of the house and it's cold because my heating isn't on."

As we leave, Ashmore reflects on the plight of women such as Marie. "These girls were doing well, they had their children, lovely houses and now they have lost their children. They're down to prostitution... We call with a bit of food for them. Some have no heating, no electricity. There's the dirty, burning smell of crack in the house."

Women now account for 30 per cent of crack users engaging with services in west Tallaght. Many are "increasingly vulnerable to intimidation and forced behaviours [including] selling themselves to settle debts," warns a report, published on Monday by Tallaght Drug and Alcohol Task Force (TDATF).

Among them are young mothers, some of whom have been forced to have sex with men brought to their homes by pushers they have debts with, while children sleep upstairs.

Debbie Dolan, addiction support worker with Community Addiction Response Programme (CARP) in Killinarden, says the drug "definitely affects women harder than men".

As well as a more rapid and intense addiction, there is a greater perceived shame and guilt among women about their addiction, says Grace Hill, TDATF co-ordinator. She is...