By Dara Bradley

Cannabis is the illegal recreational drug of choice according to An Garda Síochána, who say heroin is not as big a problem here as it is in other urban centres across the country.

Chief Superintendent Michael O’Sullivan explained at the Galway City Joint Policing Committee this week that there has been a shift in the local consumption of illicit drugs – people are choosing cannabis instead of the more expensive ecstasy pills or cocaine.

“It is cheaper to have cannabis grow houses than it is to import drugs,” said Chief Supt O’Sullivan when explaining why there had been such a large amount of cannabis seized in Galway in the first eight months of this year.

Grow houses, which are effectively drug factories where cannabis is grown in homes or empty business units, are on the increase, he said, because of ‘market forces’ and because it is cheap.

Cannabis herb is also more popular than cannabis resin, he said, again because of market forces.

He told the meeting that several seizures of cannabis had been made in Galway between January and the end of August, and the street value of the cannabis seized was €615,670.

The Garda report noted that the amount of heroin seized in Galway during the same period was just €13,900, a figure that was questioned by City Councillors as being very low.

But Chief Supt said the reason it was low is because Galway relatively has a low number of heroin addicts. “The heroin figure isn’t as big as cannabis as it’s not as popular. Thankfully we don’t have a large heroin problem as other cities of population centres around the country – Cannabis is the drug of choice in Galway,” he said.

Read more in today’s Galway City Tribune