Statistics on heroin, cocaine and cannabis use here are starker than ever. Is it time to forge a new approach to how we tackle drugs and drug addiction? asks Carol Coulter, Irish Times Legal Affairs Editor.

Earlier this week we heard that the number of heroin addicts on methadone maintenance programmes has now reached 10,000. The week before we heard that the number of people using cocaine has doubled since 2003, with a four-fold increase in certain parts of the country.

In May a conference was told that a survey of teenagers in the south-east had shown that 41 per cent of them had used cannabis, twice as many as their European counterparts, while almost 50 per cent had used some illegal drug.