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A SPANISH CITY is under fire for distributing advice on how to safely snort cocaine.
Plastic cards the size of credit cards – a tool of choice for cocaine users – were handed out by the health department in the northern city of Bilbao.
They bore messages such as: ”Cut your line well… If it is not well cut, you could damage your nostrils.”
The cards were distributed to people singled out as users or potential users during week-long festivities last month, a spokesman for the department told AFP.
“We didn’t hand them out to just anyone,” he said, adding that each recipient was warned about the dangers of drugs.
News of the controversial campaign emerged this week, sparking criticism from the conservative Popular Party in Bilbao.
The party said it was “real nonsense to hand out a kind of consumption ‘kit’ with such a flippant and frivolous message”.
The city council’s health chief, Yolanda Diez, said the advice simply sought to reduce the risks associated with taking cocaine.
A health service spokesman told AFP that around a hundred leaflets had been distributed.
Spain has the highest rate of cocaine consumption in Europe after Britain, according to the EU’s 2017 European Drug Report.
The latest figures, compiled for 2015, found 9.1% of Spaniards aged 15-64 had used cocaine in their lifetime. Within Europe, only Britain posted a higher rate, at 9.7%.
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If it helps people use drugs more safely and increases awareness of the dangers what’s the harm
@Awkward Seal: If it helps over 90% of the population don’t use cocaine according to their figures.
@Gillian Weir Scully: we’re all aware of how easy it is to manipulate figures in this country, I would think if you where to pi$$ test the population there would be more than 10% usage.
@Gillian Weir Scully: funny that 100% of the toilets tested in the dail had traces of cocaine on them explain that
@Gillian Weir Scully: it does not help. What’s the relevance? The scheme might assist (some of) the 10% that do.
@Jamie: Where did you get the information on Dail drug usage? It could also be one drug user peeing in all toilets?
@WinSomeLoseSome: Because if I was using cocaine for first time I would ask the supplier how to use or ask someone how to use.
Sitting there with a how to use leaflet and the drug just seems ridiculous.
@Gillian Weir Scully: it was all over the new a few years ago google it.heres how the European Parliaments toilets fared out
http://m.independent.ie/world-news/europe/euro-parliament-rocked-by-cocaine-finds-in-toilets-25975802.html
@Gavin Redmond: Excellent idea and well done I would be happy to submit to such a drug or drink test before putting any lives at risk. Doctors, dentists, pilots, drivers (taxi and bus) etc.
@Jamie: Interesting but not very accurate. Pretty sure Joe public happy to boast ‘I snorted coke in…..’ Houses of Parliament was mentioned but only 4 toilets tested positive. No government building in Ireland was mentioned.
@Gillian Weir Scully: like everything in life education is key. You can’t get enough of it (education, not coke). Obviously public health experts would have noticed nostril damage with cocaine users. Why not highlight this to users and make suggestions to reduce the level of that damage. As a rule of thumb, don’t expect much medical advice from your coke dealer.
@Jamie: S(umbags visiting their TDs and SF supporters.
@Jamie: You’re a bit of a donkey Jamie. First you make a BS remark about cocaine on Dail toilets and then you try to back it up with a link to a story about public toilets in Brussels. When you lie on that scale do you believe it yourself?
@Gillian Weir Scully: When they are talking about testing toilets for traces of cocaine, they mean testing the cistern lid where it will have been cut into lines and snorted.
@Ron North: I said google it but since you don’t have the intelligence to do it I’ve done it for you http://amp.breakingnews.ie/ireland/traces-of-cocaine-found-in-toilets-near-dail-chamber-244930.html
@Ron North: well Ron?
@Jamie: are those toilets close to the public bar not open to the public?
@Jamie: A second hand report of a trace of cocaine on one toilet in a public area of the Dail by a tabloid of poor reputation does not support your claim that “100% of toilets tested in the Dail had traces”.
You have posted 3 links now and the only thing that they are evidence of is that you are a liar, why don’t you man up, apologise, and admit that you were talking through your hoop? There’s a good lad.
One thing you will never be able to combat so why not advise how to do it correctly and safely, I’m not saying/calling for legislation, give the same punishment if your caught in possession or dealing.
They’re dead right, people take cocaine they always will.Time for modern society to wake up illegal drugs are never going away.Regulation is the way to go and before some people start pointing out the deaths and problems it brings with it just look at the families alcohol has destroyed for generations go to any A&E tonight there won’t be too many there due to drugs.It will be full of drunk people
@Jamie: I have been in A&E at night and they are not full of drunks. Perhaps people who work in A&E are better able to judge?
Maybe answer who they would prefer to help someone who has taken too much drink or drugs?
@Gillian Weir Scully: you’re missing my point.ill spell it out for you, alcohol has and is destroying more families thru death and addiction than all illegal drugs can ever do.its time to wake up that prohibition doesn’t work
@Jamie: I have not missed your point. I said that a person who works in A&E is a better judge of who is there at night and who they might find it harder to help.
I know a drunk and drink destroys families but so can drugs.
@Gillian Weir Scully: its common knowledge that most people in A&E at the weekends are there because of alcohol
@Jamie: Drink and drugs is not a modern problem it has been there for 100′s of years and it has always been a problem when taken to excess.
@Jamie: I have been there and not full of drunks but mainly full of sober people in pain, are sick or need medical attention.
@Gillian Weir Scully: s
@Gillian Weir Scully: so what are your views on drugs
@Gillian Weir Scully: in the UK 35% of A&E attendance is alcohol related, 70% at the weekend. I going to make an assumption that we have a similar rate here.
@Gillian Weir Scully: I think everybody knows drugs can also destroy families. What is your stance on the article and the policy of harm reduction, as opposed to complete prohibition?
@Jamie: My view on drugs? Legalise all drugs. Still protect our borders and impound any found drugs. Test the drugs to ensure they are as clean and pure as possible. Have drug dens where the drugs can be used freely and at no cost but a membership paid by users to pay for all running costs etc. Also they have to sign medical forms that they do so at their own risk, agree to DNR and also donate their bodies to science so more can be done to see the effect of drugs on the human body. Finally they have to be clear of drug use for a certain time before leaving. Might that work?
@WinSomeLoseSome: I agree with you and I would make the same assumption except when I was in A&E and in fairness it was only St Vincent’s. The people there were sober but suffering. The staff were great and I only heard one drunk (?) who was handled quickly by staff so he did not effect anyone else there.
@Gillian Weir Scully: it isn’t an assumption I made. It is based on statistics made by the nhs. So I’ll take the actual facts instead of your anecdotal evidence based on one a&e visit. Thanks.
@WinSomeLoseSome: Do you not have the general impression that British people drink a lot more than many others? I find it hard to believe that the NHS stats are typical for anywhere other than the UK on binge-drinking. Unless you add in the typical summer holiday destinations served by UK flights…
@Fiona Fitzgerald: no. We are worse actually based on the world health organisation with Ireland as 21st, and the UK 25th. The results are few years out of date 2010, but I’m guessing they haven’t changed that much
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita
We encourage people to practice safe sex by providing them with info and free condoms at events etc; this is the exact same. People are going to use drugs for a variety of different reasons; that doesn’t mean they deserve to die. Harm reduction is the only way forward.
@Himalaya Joe: I don’t think sex is illegal
@Gordon Nash: ”tis some places unless your married
@Gordon Nash: Quite right unless the person is underage, forced or is unaware of what is happening. If an event is handing out condoms then most of the people are not ready because otherwise they would carry their own surely? Different matter if they want free stuff. Laughing just thought sex at such event would not be best choice for first time?
@Gillian Weir Scully: your logic is that if free condoms should be handed out an event, they shouldn’t be handed out, because the people there aren’t ready to use them, because they should be handed out. Good Vatican reasoning there
@WinSomeLoseSome: Not really Vatican but have free condoms at toilets and have leaflets there to be picked up as needed.
@Himalaya Joe: I find people’s aversion to education of any sort so disconcerting. Education to reduce harm can never be seen as a bad thing, irrespective of the topic. Speeding is also illegal, which I’m sure everyone has done at one stage of their lives; doesn’t mean we don’t educate about it to stop lives being lost.
@Gillian Weir Scully: but you said in your previous post that if the people at an event require free condoms then they are not ready to have them because they don’t have them already. Which actually makes no sense, then you completely contradict it to say they should be free in the toilet.
@WinSomeLoseSome: Fair point.
I must send this article onto the Irish Greyhound Board
Just a thought ,would it be cheaper for the government to supply drug’s free to committed drug user’s rather than to spend millions ,billions chasing drug lord’s .To reorganise that element of society as it will never be eliminated and maybe the crime level will drop or is that euthopia
@FlopFlipU: you forgot to put an apostrophe in between the n & s of millions and billions.
@FlopFlipU: it might be beneficial to replace the methadone program with medicinal grade heroin. Especially with the fact that street heroin is becoming increasingly cut with highly potent synthetic opiates. Causing a massive increase in opium related deaths worldwide.
So what. Judging the Spanish for offering advise on snorting coke and here we are wanting to open supervised injection centres to show them how to inject heroin.
@Brendan Hughes: they also have supervised injection centres in Spain. What’s your point?
@Declan sorry I ran out of them but I popped in next door and borrowed some so here is a few , , , , if I leave them out again you can do the favour and put them in
@FlopFlipU: They’re commas, not apostrophes!
Rack em up!
@Nollaig Elliot: where?
Regulation & Taxation is the only way to go!
We’d be better off if little Johnny’s drug money was going toward housing, education and medical facilities rather than financing the lavish lifestyle of the Dapper Don et al……
A bit of coke, few MDMA tablets are quite harmless for the majority. Just like alchool can be enjoyed occasionally if taken responsibly.
Thing is be it gambling, sex, drink or recreational drugs there is the 1% who will get addicted and ruin it for the rest.
Allways chop.chop,chop, before you drop.
Studies show cocaine helps with debilitating illnesses. Helps cure bipolar and other mental health issues.
People are going to take drugs regardless so why no bring it out if the underground to try make it safer. Good idea Spain. Well done for having the balls to do it (although it’s the equivalent to telling your granny how to suck eggs…..any self respecting drug user should be able to cut a line in their sleep and it’s the first thing you learn in drug collect…..and you defo can’t become chartered w/o knowing that).
I wonder how they identified the potential users.
buenos consejeros gracias !!
I will bear this sound advice in mind thank you
Cannot forget watching the news one evening in New York back in 1988 when the presenter detailed the misuse of cocaine , enough to make anyone squirm but I suppose more than a few viewers took notice -
http://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/06/03/Man-loses-fingers-legs-to-cocaine-abuse/8978581313600/
Sure we let lads shoot up in public now.
@newbie: nice tits
Yolanda, I want your babies
Anyone one of you f***king prix move and I’ll execute every……..
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