The number of people seeking help for cocaine addiction in County Tipperary has more than doubled since 2016.
The scale of drug use in Ireland is underlined by a new report from the Health Research Board.
Cocaine is now the most common drug for people seeking treatment in Ireland, according to the report.
In 2016 there were 45 cases of people in County Tipperary seeking help for cocaine addiction – this has steadily increased over the period to 2022 when 144 such cases were recorded.
Nationally in 2022, 4,084 cases were recorded with cocaine as a main problem, an increase of 258.9% from 1,138 cases in 2016.
On a county wide breakdown most cases seeking help with cocaine addiction are in Dublin and Cork – with 54% and 6.4% of cases respectively – the next highest are Limerick with 4.2% of cases and Tipperary with 3.5% of cases.
There were over 12,000 cases treated for problem drug abuse last year with almost 40% of cases were never treated before and cases recorded can involve multiple treatments for the same time period.
In 2022, almost half of cases (47.3%) in drug treatment were parents who had children.
Cocaine use has surpassed mainly heroin use, with cannabis now the third most common drug reported, followed by benzodiazepines.
The average age for drug users in Ireland is 33 years, with the vast majority male and the number of drug users in paid employment has doubled since 2016.
The data shows that in terms of treatment, cannabis is largely used by those aged 19 years or younger, cocaine by those aged 20-34 years and opioids by people aged over 35 years.
