A Millstreet woman, who lost her brother after he took the synthetic drug, N-Bomb is spreading a drug harm-reduction message through an education programme.
Nicole Ryan's brother, Alex, died in January 2016 when he was aged just 18.
He attended a house party in the City and accidently took a huge dose of the drug because he didn't realise how potent it was.
Alex died in hospital 4 days later.
Nicole wants what happened to her family to never happen again so she founded the education programme, Alex’s Adventure.
She is now a pre-accredited addiction counsellor and has delivered workshops to over 8,500 students nationwide.
Nicole believes that pop-up drug-testing labs should be introduced at music festivals, similar to those in the UK.
Speaking to RedFM News, Nicole says there are many benefits of quality testing drugs at music festivals:
"It'd be of benefit to people because they would actually know what they have. And if it turned out to be something completely different, it will save their life because they will probably not take it. People's lives are saved. They're not overdosing. They're not dying. They're not taking drugs that they think is one thing and turns out to be a completely different thing. There's so many potential benefits to drug testing. It also offers a point of brief intervention for people, so when people are going to the test centres, they get leaflets, they get cares and they also get talked to about some of the dangers around substance use, some things that they might actually have never heard of, or have never known before".
If you are affected by any of the issues mentioned in this story, you can contact the confidential HSE Drugs & Alcohol Helpline on 1800 459 459.
