Crossing the line: The heavy cost of taking cocaine

As cocaine use becomes increasingly widespread and normalised across Ireland, John Meagher looks into the toll taken by the highly addictive drug - to the user, to the user's family and friends, and to society in general, as coke-fuelled gangland violence escalates

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John Meagher

Michael Guerin has worked as an addiction counsellor for 15 years and he knows more than most about the devastating consequences of a dependence on cocaine.

He started helping addicts at the height of the Celtic Tiger, when cocaine was the drug of choice for a fast-living, upwardly mobile and predominately urban generation.