Family stories are hoping to change policies on drugs

New podcast interviewing addicts & loved ones' shows how laws impact real lives

AN innovative podcast interviewing addicts and their families hopes to bring about a major change in drugs policy.

The Citywide Drugs Crisis Campaign's "Untold Stories" has been launched just as the state's Citizens Assembly on Drugs holds public meetings where methods of dealing with addiction are discussed.

The fourth gathering, chaired by former HSE chief Paul Reid, took place at the weekend in Malahide in North Dublin.

Untold Stories is aimed at having policymakers understand how existing laws impact on users and their relatives and what improvements can be made.

The first episode speaks to a woman whose mother and siblings used drugs and whose brother passed away as a result of their addiction.

She told listeners: "My brother just felt victimised, stigmatised, when he went to hospital. And so, he would refuse to go to hospital. I was begging him to go to hospital one day, and the ambulance was there and everything, he just wouldn't go. He died that day.