RTE themselves proudly followed up Primetime with a press release fan faring how many people were in fact watching the documentary on Monday night (somewhere in the region of 700,000 it seems).

While there can be no doubt that usage of the drug has multiplied over the last number of years in Ireland (SHB statistics from 1997 - 2004 make it perfectly clear), there are those at the coalface of the issue who would suggest that the media is playing a dangerous game in light of the recent deaths and are in danger of 'normalising' use of the drug for future generations.

Investigations by the Cork Independent in the city of Cork this week have highlighted the fact that cocaine users are carrying on regardless, unconcerned by 'good' or 'bad batches', and certainly unperturbed by constant images of those Kevin Doyle, John Grey and Katy French in print and on television.

Does the media have a responsibility in all of this to educate? To inform? Or to make money? All three, publishers will tell you.

There seems to have been a disproportionate leaning towards sensationalism over the last few weeks however and professionals working in the area of illegal drugs are now concerned that instead of helping solve the problem, the Irish media has been manipulating it and using it for its own devices to the future detriment of today's children.

Such is the nature of media perhaps. But education is generally accepted as one of the strongest tools of our times, and there must also be a responsibility on the media's behalf to educate those who are in danger of falling under the heady spell of cocaine.

Primetime was an excellent example of investigative journalism, but can we expect a number of similarly funded programmes from RTE educating its viewers on how to avoid in the first place, or escape from, the perils they are quite prepared to expose?

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