340 drugs tests failed at jail

Two hundred and seventy seven inmates were tested for a range of drugs - including heroin, cocaine and amphetamines - with 340 failures the result.

Cannabis was by far and away the most common drug abused in the County Londonderry jail over the period surveyed with 129 prisoners tested and 169 failures noted.

The second most commonly used drugs were Benzodiazepines - sedatives commonly used by multiple drug users - with 70 inmates tested and 81 failures recorded.

But harder drugs such as cocaine and various opiate were also found to be in use in the Point Road facility.

Twenty six inmates were separately tested for both cocaine and opiates resulting in 30 and 29 fails respectively.

Equally, 14 prisoners were tested for the semi-synthetic opiod Buprenorphine - sometimes used in the treatment of heroin dependency - with 17 failures recorded.

Ten inmates were also tested for amphetamines and two for steroids with 12 and two failures respectively.