Local students launch video campaign on drink spiking

Mar 10, 2023 13:27 By Shannonside News

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The local students believe drink spiking has become a major issue in recent months

Students at a west Roscommon secondary school have launched a new video campaign to raise awareness around drink spiking.

Transition Year pupils at Castlerea Community School have released the video 'Don't Turn Your Back' as part of the young social innovator programme.

The local students believe drink spiking has become a major issue in recent months and the video which has been viewed thousands of times highlights some of the precautions to take when drinking and socialising.

Julia is a TY student at the school, she says the class hope to take the campaign further by writing to the Minister calling for a change to drink spiking legislation.

"From our survey we've found that a lot of the students in our school know people who've been affected or may have been affected themselves and we think it's really important to keep each other safe. So we had our local community Garda, Garda Moore, come in to talk to us about drink spiking and he shared the information on the legislation with us. We found that it's very outdated. We don't feel that that's fair so we'd like to try and change that"

The video is available to watch now on the Castlerea Community School tik tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dont.turn.your.back/video/7205553916887584005?_t=8aHv8QnyUsA&_r=1

You can listen to the full interview hear which hears from teacher Bernie Gormally as well as students Julia and Dervla.