HEROIN and cocaine sold by Limerick drug dealers is mixed with everything from talcum powder to cattle ringworm medicine.
Forensic Science Ireland, based at Garda Headquarters, have confirmed the common belief that drug purity levels in Limerick can be less than 20 per cent with the other 80 per cent made up of a host of ingredients.
Dublin purity levels are recorded at 28 per cent, which is well below the European average of 35-45 per cent.
According to analysis of drugs seized by Gardaí, unscrupulous dealers are bulking or “cutting” cocaine with potent levels of levamisole which is used to kill parasitic worms in animals.
Three out of every four cocaine seizures had levamisole present.
Heroin found in Limerick had been cut to just 30 per cent but bulk seizures had purity levels of more than 40 per cent, indicating that local gangs are further cutting the drugs before distributing them on the streets.
The State laboratory said that white sugars, caffeine, diazepam, paracetamol and creatine were also used in the drug mixes.
Earlier this year, Kieran (40) and Brian Collopy (43) were jailed for eight years after they were found cutting, mixing and bagging €37,000 of heroin in mixing bowls and in the bath of a house in St Mary’s Park.
The brothers were described as being at the “top end of the drugs pyramid”.
Testing has shown that the drugs also contain benzocaine and lignocaine, which are local anaesthetics used in dentistry, as well as caffeine and phenacetin, a painkiller banned in a number of countries due to its cancer causing properties.
There have been large quantities of Amphetamine seized in Limerick which have have had purity levels as low as 9.2 per cent.
