Experts are warning that cocaine use has become increasingly normalised across Ireland, spreading from big cities into small towns and villages.

Speaking on The Anton Savage Show, Professor Johanna Ivers, Professor of Addiction at Trinity College Dublin, said the scale of cocaine use has shifted dramatically in recent years.

 “In 2022, cocaine surpassed opioids for the first time in the history of our treatment services as the primary drug people were presenting with,” she said.

“That’s at the far end of severity - but from a public health perspective, it’s far more widespread than it was a decade or two ago.”

Professor Ivers said national and European data show “exponential growth” in cocaine use, with many users falling outside traditional addiction services.

“There are people using it in a harmful and hazardous way who are functioning through it,” she said.

“They’re not presenting for treatment, but the harm is still there.”

She said cocaine has become embedded in Ireland’s social life in a way other drugs never were, explaining how most Irish people know someone who is using cocaine.

“People are in places where lots of groups are using it - groups that wouldn’t have been using drugs two decades ago.”

That normalisation, she said, has fuelled a dangerous misconception.

“People say, ‘I do it once a week’ or ‘once a month’, and compare themselves to someone using more heavily. But cocaine is absolutely addictive and comes with serious health, psychological and social consequences," she said.

Detective Chief Superintendent Seamus Boland, head of An Garda Síochána’s Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, said cocaine is widely viewed as a “recreational” drug - a perception he described as deeply damaging.

“It tends to run in line with alcohol,” he said.

“People are on a night out, and unfortunately the normalisation of it has become a huge issue.”

Boland said Ireland’s economic recovery has also played a role.

“It is absolutely an indication of our economic standing,” he said, noting that when the economic crash occurred, cocaine use dropped.

Crucially, he said many users fail to connect their weekend drug use with the violence and organised crime it funds.

“Good people use cocaine,” he said.

“People who would not commit crime, who contribute hugely to society - but they don’t realise what they’re funding.”

“That’s why we launched our ‘Every Line Funds Crime’ campaign,” he added.

“We want people to understand what they are fuelling.”

Boland also warned that what people believe they are taking often bears little resemblance to cocaine at all.

Members of the U.S. Coast Guard offload bails of over eight tons of cocaine interdicted in international waters (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

“Some of what’s being sold in pubs and clubs contains less than 2% cocaine,” he said.

“It’s mixed with benzocaine, lidocaine, crushed paracetamol - any powder at all.”

Professor Ivers said tackling cocaine use requires more than policing.

“We haven’t developed new evidence-based treatments for cocaine in the last 30 years,” she said.

“The treatments we have have modest effects.”

She argued for earlier intervention, particularly in primary care.

“Just asking someone in GP settings about cocaine use can open a conversation that wouldn’t otherwise happen.”