Over 3,100 people were convicted of drugs offences in the first ten months of this year.
More than 19% were in Dublin, but many rural areas also had large numbers, including Carlow, Ennis and Clonmel in County Tipperary.
That's despite a slowdown in court activity this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sheelagh Brady is a security analyst and former Garda sergeant - she says the new figures show how widespread by the problem is:
Advertisement
"Often when we're hearing about drugs problem, we hear of it in the big urban centres."
"Looking at towns like Mullingar and Portlaois, when you look at those figures, you see that there is a wider distribution of the problem."
"It's not the same when we look at more rural areas, you can see the numbers are lower."
