The document describes 5 research studies related to drug and alcohol use in Ireland, including general practitioner perspectives on methadone treatment, experiences of home detoxification, a mapping of public nuisance related to drugs and alcohol, a study of mephedrone injecting, and experiences with methadone in Dublin North East. It also briefly describes 2 studies on online drug markets, including experiences of users on the Silk Road marketplace.

2. 1.
General Practitioner attitudes, experiences and perspectives on the provision
of methadone maintenance treatment
2.
Family Experiences of Home and Self Detoxification Processes”.
3.
A Rapid Assessment Research (RAR) and a mapping exercise to estimate
levels of drug and alcohol related public nuisance during business and out of
hours in the area between Christchurch and the IFSC and Parnell Square to St
Stephens Green
4.
An exploratory study of injecting mephedrone use in Ireland
5.
Experiences surrounding Methadone for the Dublin North East Task Force
6.
7.
Silk Road‟, The virtual drug marketplace: a single case study of user
Surfing the Silk Road‟: An ethno-pharmacological study of users‟ experiences.

3. Man in Amsterdam Picture

4. 
Break into groups and list descriptive
words to describe the following pictures

10. 
Burton Blatt (1981) wrote, "A person is
defined by the stories he tells about
himself as well as by the stories that are
told about him." Too often, stories are
told about people with disabilities and
the emphasis is on the voice of the
professional, not the voice of the person
(Biklen, 1988; Biklen & Duchan, 1994;
Blatt, 1981; Bogdan & Taylor, 1976, 1994;
Kliewer & Biklen, 1996).

11. 
Bogdan and Biklen (1998) describe
giving voice as "empowering people to
be heard who might otherwise remain
silent"

14. I was clean at the time, until
that came out. I was clean
for a good year, I heard it
was like coke, coke was
always my drug of
choice, everyone was telling
me its exactly like coke, twice
as strong do you know what I
mean, I just said ah „feck it‟. I
wasn‟t worried if I was
searched going down the
street, for me it was just like
coke. . . and half the price of
coke
Some of the stuff I used to
take used to crystalise in the
works, the more you heat
you put to it, the more
crystallize it gets, if you
didn‟t get it into you before
so many seconds it would
crystallize. Always cooked
up with citric, sometimes
you could put it into the
barrel and shake
it, sometimes if I was
desperate, I would use
puddle water.

15. The first time I used it, I
snorted it, it burnt the
nose off me, literally felt
the burning sensation
going up into your
head, that‟s what turned
me off snorting it, then I
started injecting
I nearly lost my leg over it . .
I‟d say that‟s what caused
my leg to swell up, cause
because I ended up getting
a clot on me groin
and an infection, an abscess
on my groin, doctors told me
I was lucky to come in, if you
hadn‟t of [have] come in, in
the next few days, you would
have lost your leg

16. 
When I started taking the benzo‟s, I was waking up
groggy in the morning, then I was using cocaine to
counteract that, so I could function during the
day, and then smoking cannabis to take the edge
off that, and then more benzo‟s at night, and that
was the cycle for ages, probably for six or seven
months.‟

I knew myself it was going to be hell coming off
it, once the money ran out for the alcohol, and once
the alcohol would not stay down in my stomach, it
was that or turn to tablets…what I have heard is that
coming off the tablets is bad as well, I am now
drinking every day of the week.‟

17. ‘The first time I ever witnessed a benzo fit was with
one of my sons. I left him on the ground and ran
out of the house, because I didn't know what was
happening, I knew in my head, he was not
epileptic, I knew this was more than a epileptic fit.
I had no idea what's happening to him. I didn't
know whether to put in him the recovery position
or what to do, so I ran out of the house and left
him there and rang an ambulance, because I
thought he was dying. It wasn't until I went down
to the hospital with him, I explained he was
withdrawing from medication, that's when they
thought it was a benzo fit.’

19. “The main problem are the
businesses that sell alcohol,
simply if their staff are aware
of who they are selling it,
they can stop a hell of a lot
of problems happening
outside their shops, alcohol is
not brought into town , it is
bought in here , it is sold in
here and it is drank in here,
and that's what's causing the
problems. The places that
have liquor licenses should
be more responsible, it‟s not
the pubs, it is the off licenses
and agents that sell it.”
“When they are dealing the
prescription drugs, they have tried
numerous ways to deal with that, but it
is the legislation that‟s ultimately
standing in their way.”

20. 
“The Luas is a fantastic service, but for
bringing problems into the north inner
city has a huge detrimental effect. The
dealers don't need to bring cars into
town, they have free transport
everywhere, it‟s a transient population
and with the volumes of people, it‟s a
comfortable area. Especially with the
clinics around they know their customers
will always be here.”

22. Street drinking
16 (64%)
Loitering
15 (60%)
Drug dealing
10 (40%)
Drug using
9 (36%)
Street injecting
2 (8%)
Begging
18 (72%)
Noisy and aggressive behaviours
14 (18%)
Drug related litter
18 (72%)
None
0

23. 
Visual methods contributed to the field based
„documentary‟, with the digital photographs used to
interpret and illustrate the research mapping, and
also in order to „visualise‟ the verbal accounts of
participant experiences and perspectives
(Henley, 1998; Dovey et al., 2001; Ranard; 2002;
Malins et al., 2006; Bourgois and Schonberg, 2009;
Parkin and Coomber, 2009)

This alternative method contributes to a wider
understanding of the inter relationships between
policy, practice and enforcement, drug users and
specific drug scenes in the research area (Parkin and
Coomber, 2009).

27. Support the establishment of a pilot
project of a Medically Supervised
Injecting Centre to enable the
gathering of evidence on the
effectiveness on this initiative to reduce
harm for drug users engaged in risky
behaviour (HSE)

29. 
Research problems – Everyone will have a
specific knowledge or interest in an area

Has similar research been conducted
before ?

Can we use the same model of intervention
?

30. 
In groups of two discuss an area or
interest that you would like to research

Explain why you have chosen this topic ?

Methodology ?

31. Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking
and prying with a purpose.
Zora Neale Hurston

32. Tim Bingham
 Email info@timbingham.ie
 Tel 0863893530
