Tallaght crack dealers coaxing older female addicts into sexual favours for cocaine
| Author | Dan Grennan |
| Published date | 08 November 2021 |
| Publication title | DublinLive (Ireland) |
The highly addictive substance is said to have taken hold in the community from as early as 2017, with addicts starting to present with issues associated with the debilitating drug.
Debbie McDolan of the Community Addiction Response Programme in Tallaght said she first noticed the drug's effect in older women.
She told Morning Ireland: "In 2017 and 2018, we started to notice that our clientele had changed the way they were presenting.
"They were coming in very dishevelled. There was a lot of high, high anxiety and it seemed to be a cohort of women, older women as well.
"It is rampant on the streets. It's causing absolute mayhem in the community and with families that are affected by it. There are very few families that are not affected by drug use, but this one is a little bit different because the harm it causes. It's a lot quicker to take a person - it takes their soul."
Fiona Murphy, who also works for CARP and is a recovered drug addict, said drug dealers are waiting outside post offices for female addicts after they collect their money and enticing them into prostitution to pay off their drug debts.
She said: "They're living in fear - they have to find ways and means to pay back these drug dealers.
"The drug dealers today are enticing them into sexual favours to pay off their drug debts.
"I work with women who are trying to stay away from the crack. They've gone down to the post offices to get their money and these dealers are targeting them - they're outside in the post offices."
She added: "They're not escaping. There's one lady I know who had come into recovery and they were throwing the crack up onto her when she was sitting there on the balcony enjoying a cup of coffee. So there's no escaping from it. There was none of that when I was in my active addiction."
Ms Murphy said that drug use, no matter what substance, always takes the user to grim situations.
She said: "I always say, it doesn't matter what drugs you take, they are all going to lead you to hell. Where they brought me was I ended up with a drug induced psychosis - I was so depressed and I was I wasn't living I was just existing. I just couldn't function."
Independent Senator Lynn Ruane, who grew up in Tallaght, said the poverty in the area cannot be separated from the drug issues which have exasperated in recent times.
She said: "We need to look at the wider...
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