Irish Times: An Object That Defines Ireland

An object that defines Irish history from  2000 to now

A bottle of methadone 

In late 1999, we decided try and fend off the onslaught of Dublin’s third heroin epidemic by introducing something called The Methdone Protocol. 

Methadone is a opiate substitute. It’s green. It comes in little plastic bottles, like medicated shampoo. Drug users take it with fruit juice. When you on the protocol, you attend a clinic twice a week, and you give a urine sample to a doctor. If you miss your clinic, you get sick- withdrawals are described most commonly as being like the worst flu you can imagine. It’s very hard to get a job or go on holiday when you have to report to a clinic twice a week. 

Methadone eases the sickness and it’s designed to help people become drug free. It’s supposed to be transitional. 

But all through the last decade, we didn’t provide much else. There are 28 detoxification beds in Ireland for a drug using population of 11,000.

It was designed be a transition. But that is not the true protocol, what actually happens is a lot of people become dependent on this for life, tied to state and services and smoking heroin at the weekend.