24 drug seizures were made across Carlow and Kilkenny by Gardaí in the first week of April alone.
Eight of these were for possession of drugs for sale and supply while one was for cultivation after cannabis plants worth in excess of €30,000 were discovered in South Kilkenny.
While over €2,000 worth of heroin was also discovered in Carlow Town.
The seizures took place right across the two counties at both rural and urban points, a number of them came about after planned searches of premises under warrant.
Cocaine and cannabis herb was the most popular.
Divisional Crime Prevention Officer Sgt Peter McConnon says it’s due to a very active drug unit across the division’s three districts of Carlow, Kilkenny, and Thomastown;
“They will obviously work off information and be as proactive as they can in trying to establish the whereabouts of drugs, a lot of seizures are related directly to searches of premises under warrant, you know, it’s not just our drugs unit it’s our roads policing unit who are on checkpoints as well, we have our uniformed and detective plainclothes members in all three districts that are on checkpoints as well, they’re looking at the movement of people trying to move drugs so again it’s a follow-up of intelligent reports that leads them to searching premises”.
He adds “We would encourage any person who has any information in relation to drugs to use or drugs sale or supply to contact their local garda station in confidence, it is certainly something that we want to rid our streets of, our communities of and we’ve often said that people think that maybe having ten euro worth of cannabis is not the biggest crime in the world but the reality of it is that you are lining somebody’s pockets when you are in possession of that ten euro and right away there’s a bigger picture”.