The Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use heard that ‘Irish criminal networks have been considering the supply of fentanyl into the Irish market”.
Senior gardaí issued the warning about fentanyl at the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use, which held its fourth session at the weekend examining drug laws.
Irish and European experts are concerned that the Taliban crackdown in Afghanistan on the production of opium, from which heroin is made, may result in criminals turning to synthetic opiates, including fentanyl, to fill the market. These synthetic versions are far more potent than heroin. Fentanyl, estimated to be at least 50 times more powerful than heroin, has been to the forefront of the devastating opiate epidemic in the US. Preliminary statistics from the US for 2022 indicated there were 109,000 deaths linked to synthetic opiates, primarily fentanyl.
Detective Chief Superintendent Seamus Boland of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau said, “We are satisfied that Irish criminal networks have been considering the supply of fentanyl into the Irish market.”
(Cormac O’Keefe, Irish Examiner, 4/9/2023)
Rialto Community Drug Team 