Drug awareness open evening to take place in Ballinascreen Community Hub

The session, which takes place on Tuesday January 21 at 7pm, with information stalls from statutory agencies and speakers with real life experience, she has urged everyone to come along and take part in the conversation.

Speaking ahead if the event, Ms Sheerin said: “This event has been organised by leaders from across society in Ballinascreen, through the Ballinascreen Community Forum and Workspace, and I want to take this opportunity to thank them for their work on this and the initiatve that they have shown, tackling a really difficult subject head on, for the benefit of everyone.

“When the group came together to discuss this, it was made clear from the outset that this is not an attempt to shame anyone or pinpoint local victims of drug addiction, but to offer help in a dignified and discreet way. The group acknowledged that in Ballinascreen, just as in all rural communities across Ireland, the scourge of illegal drug use, once thought of as a problem exclusive to big cities and far-away places, is now something that we have to contend with.

“Through discussion, it also became clear that for many, the signals and signs of drug - use are a foreign language, and that most of us couldn't identify the main drugs currently in circulation. This means that any of us have the potential to have friends, colleagues, family members suffering in silence, with no sense of what is going on or how to direct them to help.

“The objective of Tuesday night is to open up the conversation, and ultimately to change that. We would like to have a community where the stigma around illegal drugs, and indeed prescription drugs, is diminished, and where instead we can have honest and frank conversations to try and tackle these problems.

“Just as our community has led in the past on lifting the lid on the dialogue around mental health issues, we want to work together on this problem, which is obviously heavily linked."