The ESHEILD project was launched in University College Cork (UCC) on 29 February 2025 at an event attended by harm reduction experts, policy-makers, and student representatives. With further higher education institutions (HEIs) expected to adopt the initiative, ESHEILD marks the beginning of a coordinated national effort to reduce drug-related harms and risks among students across Ireland.

The ESHEILD project, which is based in UCC and is funded by the Department of Health, is a multi-strand initiative that aims to support HEIs in tackling student drug use by providing students with the MyUSE app and guiding HEIs to implement the Framework for Response to the Use of Illicit Substances within Higher Education.

The Department of Health has begun the process of developing the successor to the national drugs strategy Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery: A health-led response to drug and alcohol use in Ireland 2017-2025.1 The strands of work informing this process include: 

• The findings and recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use and the views of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Drugs Use2,3•    
• An independent evaluation of Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery and its action plans
• Consultations with stakeholders on key themes relating to the new strategy
• The commitments made in the 2025 Programme for Government4 
• Developments in the European Union’s (EU’s) Drugs Strategy and Action Plan (which also expire in 2025).5 

The Pompidou Group (Council of Europe International Cooperation Group on Drugs and Addictions) is the Council of Europe’s drug policy cooperation platform. In March 2025 it published a new report titled Bringing human rights to the heart of drug and addiction policies: Guidance for aligning drug and addiction policies with human rights.1 The report provides a succinct but comprehensive overview of the issues related to human rights to be considered by all stakeholders involved in the drug policy-making process.

Background

In 2023, the Health Research Board (HRB) partnered with Trinity College Dublin to examine the alcohol- and drug-related data collected in the nationally representative, longitudinal Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study. A series of publications have ensued as a result of this collaboration.1-4 The most recent of these examined the association between age of alcohol initiation and hazardous alcohol use during adolescence with alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and other drug use during early adulthood.5

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) describe different types of stressful or traumatic experiences during childhood, and exposure to extreme stress during critical periods of early life may increase the likelihood of exposure to a range of adverse factors.1 Importantly, studies have demonstrated positive associations between ACEs and substance use behaviours in young adults.2 However, many of these are based on cross-sectional data, which cannot provide evidence on the hypothesised direction of association between ACEs and substance use. In addition, the pathway between ACEs and substance misuse among emerging adults is not fully understood and few studies have investigated potential mediating factors. 

The Republic of Ireland ranks fourth globally for past-year cocaine use, with 2.4% of the general adult population reporting such use in 2019.1 It ranks second in Europe for lifetime cocaine use among 15–24-year-olds, with such use estimated at 6.8% in 2021.2 National drug treatment surveillance data revealed a 259% increase in cases where cocaine was the main problem drug between 2016 and 2022; in 2022, cocaine surpassed opioids as the leading problem drug, accounting for 34% of all drug treatment cases.3 In addition, among individuals aged 15–24 years, cocaine-related hospital discharges rose by 83% between 2015 and 2019, while cocaine-related deaths increased by 41% between 2007 and 2017.2 However, despite growing concerns about trends in cocaine use in Ireland, there is a lack of longitudinal studies that prospectively examine factors associated with cocaine initiation and use in general youth populations. 

Problem drug use (PDU) is defined as recurrent drug use that is causing harm to an individual, or is placing them at a high probability or risk of suffering harm.1 Substances associated with PDU include opioids, cocaine (powder and crack), amphetamines, benzodiazepines, Z-drugs, and gabapentinoids. PDU can lead to many harms for populations and individuals. Such harms include increased criminal activity, drug-related litter, increased risk of infectious diseases passed on from shared syringes and needles, substance use disorders, overdoses, and death. 

A paper titled ‘A qualitative analysis of people who died by suicide and had gambling documented in their coronial file’,1 which explores the relationship between death by suicide and gambling in Ireland, was published in April 2025. It is the first study to explore this topic using coronial records in Ireland.

Context

Since the mid-1990s, the availability of gambling and gambling products (including online products) has increased dramatically. In turn, rates of gambling and problematic gambling have also increased. In Ireland, the estimate of adults with problematic gambling behaviours is 3.3%, with a further 7.1% having ‘multiple problematic gambling experiences’ (p. 2).2 

The Examining the overprescribing of Benzodiazepines, z-drugs and Gabapentinoids in Ireland report was published by the Medical Council on 25 February 2025.1 The aim of the report was to outline key issues along with recommendations identified by the Overprescribing Working Group. 

Working Group

The Overprescribing Working Group (‘the Working Group’) was established in 2019 by then President of the Medical Council, Dr Rita Doyle. Initially, the remit was to review concerns about overprescribing benzodiazepines and associated complaints received by the Medical Council. Z-drugs and gabapentinoids were added later. The Working Group consisted of representatives from a range of stakeholders, including the Health Service Executive (HSE); Department of Health; Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI); Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP); Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI); Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA); Irish College of Psychiatry; and Faculty of Pain Medicine, College of Anesthesiologists of Ireland.1

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has developed a tool to assess a national prevention system based on the International standards on drug use prevention.1 Following a pilot of the tool (Review of Prevention Systems (RePS)) in Norway, the tool is now being applied to the Irish context. It will explore the range of prevention interventions in Ireland and the system underpinning them in relation to the international standards for effective practices in prevention.

Background

In February 2025, in the shadow of the Guinness brewery (part of Diageo), often synonymous with Dublin, a workshop event, ‘The other side of the coin’, was held in Rialto’s F2 Centre. The workshop, organised by the Canal Communities Local Drug and Alcohol Task Force, Irish Community Action on Alcohol Network (ICAAN), and the Health Service Executive (HSE), aimed to explore the challenges and strategies for building understanding of alcohol harm in communities where the alcohol industry has created a narrative of embodying virtue in the Dublin 8 area.

The National Psychiatric Inpatient Reporting System (NPIRS) annual report on the activities of Irish psychiatric units and hospitals 2023, published by the Health Research Board (HRB) Mental Health Information Systems Unit,1 shows that the rate of new admissions to inpatient care for alcohol disorders has remained stable.

A visiting committee is appointed to each Irish prison under the Prisons (Visiting Committees) Act, 1925 and the Prisons (Visiting Committees) Order, 1925. Members of the 12 visiting committees are appointed by the Minister for Justice for a term not exceeding 3 years. The function of prison visiting committees is to visit, at frequent intervals, the prison to which they are appointed and to hear any complaints that may be made to them by any prisoner. The committees report to the Minister for Justice regarding any abuses observed or found, and any repairs which they think are urgently needed. Prison visiting committee members have free access, either collectively or individually, to every part of the prison to which their committee is appointed. Information from prison visiting committee reports relating to drug use in prisons for 2022 is summarised below.1

The Ana Liffey Drug Project (ALDP) is a low-threshold, harm reduction project working with people who are actively using drugs and experiencing associated problems. ALDP has been offering harm reduction services to people in the north inner city area of Dublin since 1982, from premises at Middle Abbey Street. ALDP offers a wide variety of low-threshold, harm reduction services that provide pathways for drug users out of their current circumstances, including addiction and homelessness.

The Self-Harm Assessment and Data Analysis (SADA) Project was set up in Ireland in 2016 to provide robust information relating to the incidence and profile of self-harm within prison settings, as well as individual-specific and context-specific risk factors relating to self-harm. In addition, it examines patterns of repeat self-harm (both non-fatal and fatal). The Health Service Executive’s National Office for Suicide Prevention and the National Suicide Research Foundation assist the Irish Prison Service with data management, data analysis, and reporting. This article highlights findings from a report presenting data in the analysis of all episodes of self-harm across the Irish prison estate during the years 2020 and 2021.1

Communities That Care (CTC) is a place-based initiative that develops a prevention operating system in a community in order to prevent drug use and other harmful behaviours.1 It provides a method for communities to assess the needs of their young people, coordinate stakeholders to develop a response, select and implement suitable evidence-based programmes to meet these needs, and evaluate the outcomes achieved. CTC is being implemented in Ireland for the first time in 2025. It is being led by the South Western Regional Drug & Alcohol Task Force’s Substance Use Regional Forum (SURF), with support from the Department of Health, the Department of Justice, and Kildare County Council.

Prevalence and current situation

The internalization of stigma and the shaping of the grief experience for peers bereaved by a drug-related death
O’Callaghan D and Lambert S (2024) Omega (Westport), early online. Available from:
https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/41693/ 

The impact of the introduction of tobacco product plain packaging on consumer responses in Ireland: a real-world policy evaluation stratified by socioeconomic groups
Sheridan A, Conway R, Murphy E, et al. (2024) Eur J Public Health, 34(5): 970–978. Available from: 
https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/41701/