 information for people who use drugs in particular music festivals and it's advice on how to reduce the risks associated with drug use. They're going to partner with a number of festivals and offer harm reduction programs on-site. This will be run by HSE volunteers. Well the project manager is Nicky Colleen who joins us now. So Nicky, I go along to a festival or one of the festivals that this is going to be at and I figure that a few pints is just not going to do it. I'm intent on taking drugs. How is this going to help or what would you suggest I do? Hi there. So yeah, first of all the HSE's messages it is safe for not to use drugs. So we do highlight the risks associated with substance use and that the risks can be depending on the type of drug and what's in the drug but also your personal factors. So every person is different and everyone will have a different reaction to drugs whether that's physically or mentally. So that is our core message. I says we have looked at Europe and we have looked at our local studies and we are saying that nightlife settings in general are risk-taking settings. So we know that these are environments where drug use happens and we know that these are types of people who may not come into our services. So I suppose the nightlife and festival setting offers us a really exciting new opportunity to expand the HSE services and to engage with people. So we do a number of different things when we chat with people. We obviously highlight the risks as I said but we meet them where they're at. So we're going into this space where people are going to have fun and yes they will consume substances but we will talk to them, we will ask them how they're getting on, what's going on for them and their friends and I suppose our main aim then for people who choose to use drugs is to help them reduce harms. So we want them to know you know as much as possible about the current drug trends about how that could increase risks and we want them to know different things, practical steps that they can implement to reduce harm. So this is known as harm reduction and it's an approach where really you're trying to minimize all of the risks that could be caused. So there's a very different approach as it could be information provision, it could be telling people you know how their prescription medication or different drugs interacts with each other if they're using more than one drug or what our new approach which we've piloted and we're running again this summer is the back-of-house drug analysis whereby we want to identify if there's dangerous drugs in circulation so drugs that have extra risk so something that people may need to be aware of and consider if they are at the event. So if I have a tablet or some cocaine or whatever it is and I take it along to your tent would you be able to test it and say you know you shouldn't be taking this but you know if you are there's no there's no harsh tranquilizers in it. Is that how it works? So essentially this approach is known as back-of-house and what that means is it's a style of approach so there'll be different approaches on how countries will apply drug analysis. So this approach is I suppose where people will discard of drugs so so what we found is some people did it for research purposes they did it to help out with monitoring and some people came to us and said look on the Saturday I had a really negative experience last night or my friend did I'm getting rid of these drugs I want the HSE to see what's in them so so people will have to come to the HSE tent which is the drugs.e tent or a medical tent where there will be surrender bins and they can then willingly discard of the drugs what'll happen then is the drugs will be tested on site in an on site laboratory and if there's extra concern so we're looking for high strength drugs that may pose an extra risk adulterance or new drugs so new drugs that people wouldn't know that they're in the product so in those situations we'll issue alerts on the festival screen throughout the festival on social media and in the media. Would it be more successful if you were offering a service whereby you checked the drugs and they didn't have to discard them and I know people are going to say well what'd be the point in that I mean then you're legitimizing drug taking but would there not be a greater uptake if that was the case so yeah so the HSE into 2019 would have reviewed all of the different type of drug checking methodologies we had a working group under the national drug strategy so we worked with many different stakeholders and we looked at many different approaches in different countries and we we have a report which we published in 2021 after the covid pandemic and it highlights the pros and cons and benefits of each testing approach I suppose that working group made a series of recommendations at 15 to look at the expansion of this into the nightlife setting and the first step was to pilot this type of approach so with those if we're looking at other approaches this will require legislative changes and that can take time so for now I suppose in to to steal the gap and to help our knowledge and to help the public reduce harms we need to be able to try this approach see how we can work with the public see how we can get the lab on site and see what we can learn so this is a really new project for Ireland and generally other countries will pilot this approach as a first step and some may do it as their ongoing approach because there are benefits for drug monitoring even without the other styles of approach let's face it taking drugs it's you know it's it's a selfish endeavor and what you're relying on here for this program to be a success would be for people to think of the you know of others of the the wider community if you like and if they if they see something dodgy if they have a bad experience if you know friends are concerned you know there's the opportunity to go and you know chuck these away but to have them analyzed and then for for you to be able to put out warnings or or take action yeah and I suppose it does offer that offer that opportunity to different people so what we found was some people you know as I said their friend group said we have these we think someone had a negative reaction last night please take you know this away we don't want it anymore we did have some cases in the medical tent whereby people left a new drug called 3cmc so that with links with a medical case so so there are opportunities I suppose for people who who either want to dispose of something that they are concerned about or for people who do want to help research and to help us learn more with this dial-up approach and last year someone would have given us 12 new psychoactive substances in a package from their friend group and really that was to help us and our research and and they you know they they named kind of wrote what was on the package and and really we've different types of people coming with different rationale to use the bins and I suppose it is a pilot phase we've we've done one event we'll pilot it again this summer and we'll review it and we'll see you know how it works how the public feel about it and it is a work and learning for us all as a very new approach so you were at Electric Picnic last year and now you're going to roll it out to more festivals and what about I mean it's called the nightlife program would you envisage something like this then happening out on the streets you know in really busy spots so yeah so I said we're working really closely with the Department of Health Department of Justice and Guard of Chicana and the Department of Culture and I suppose the safe and out life program originally and and initially we'll look at festival settings and then we'll work what our stakeholders and and get some stakeholder feedback on how we may expand harm reduction into other nightlife settings so so as I said it is very initial stages of this this style of project so it's a process of learning review working with new stakeholders so the nightlife industry are really new stakeholders and we need to listen to their their feedback and thoughts and learning and see how we can expand the program moving forward but I suppose we will be working quite closely with festivals this summer and and other nightlife providers to share harm reduction messages so so that can be done on social media it can be done by having our leaflets and our resources so there's many different ways that the nightlife industry can support this campaign it's it's not going to win the war on drugs but it might it might help to win another battle well this this style of project is essentially helping us get information we wouldn't otherwise have so so add electric picnic at our first pilot event we found as I said 12 new drugs which are very novel and less seen but we found four drugs that have never been found before in Ireland so so even with our first pilot we've shown the success of learning new things and reaching new user groups so from the HSE's perspective we're really pleased with the approach that we've taken so far okay and if someone's concerned and wants maybe just to delve into the wee bit more get more information well where would be a good place to go yes so for anyone who wants to follow our work or get information about drugs or updates on alerts so we will be reviewing drugs this weekend we're starting with live festival in west mead and if we do find drugs of concern we'll be issuing alerts and communications with the public about what we see so people can follow drugs.ie on instagram and twitter and also hse live on twitter and instagram brilliant drugs.ie thanks nikki hi kare itchy eyes running nose wheezy and a meen hay fever is back on the attack as pharmacists Brennan's have a wide range of allergy remedies to come to your rescue and we can advise you on how to lessen those hay fever attacks so come in for a chat and we can talk through your options and private if you like you'll be 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