A “process toward decriminalisation” of drugs for personal use should be “accelerated”, an Oireachtas committee has recommended.
In a report published on Wednesday the joint committee on justice said convictions for drug possession should be wiped from a person’s record – or “spent” – when decriminalisation is introduced, that certain drugs be regulated, and in the meantime mobile injecting facilities should be introduced, and, funding for projects that support people in addiction and their families, including in local drug and alcohol taskforces, be significantly increased.
The report follows several months of hearings by the committee on the current approach to illicit drug use. It says: “The majority of witnesses agreed that the current approach is clearly not successful. This argument was based on figures which demonstrate that the rate of drug deaths in Ireland is the fourth worst in Europe and is three times the European average.”
It recommends “that a policy of decriminalisation is pursued in line with emerging international best practice ... through appropriate legislation reform in favour of a health-led approach to problem drug use”.
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Chair of the committee, Fianna Fáil TD James Lawless said some may see the report “as radical or some new departure”.
He did not believe it was either. “I think it’s just following the direction of travel of the last several years by society at large. Sometimes the political system can be behind the curve on particular issues,” he said at the publication.
The report would go to acting Minister for Justice, Heather Humphreys and he hoped the forthcoming citizens assembly on drug use, due to begin work next year, would bring “critical mass” to the issues and recommendations detailed in the report.
Labour’s Aodhan Ó Riordain, a member of the committee and long-time advocate for decriminalisation, said: “Whenever a group of people look dispassionately at this issue of drugs in Ireland they come to the same conclusion – that what we’re doing is wrong, that what we’re doing is hurting people and what we are doing is killing people. And we need a new approach. ... Lives are on the line,” he said.
One of the report’s overarching aims of its 22 recommendations, he said was to “accelerate the process to decriminalisation”.
Many witnesses told the committee criminalisation had “slowed down access to treatments for drug addiction ... [and] may also have influenced the delay regarding the introduction of safe injection facilities,” says the report, referring to continuing planning dispute between a local primary school and Merchants Quay Ireland, over the latter’s application open a supervised drugs consumption facility.
“It was put to the Committee that criminalisation of drugs has a stigmatising effect, as those who have a criminal conviction for drugs possession or drug use carry this for life, limiting their educational, employment, volunteering and travel opportunities,” says the report.
“Witnesses recommended that adopting a policy of decriminalisation would reduce the stigmatising effect of drug usage and addiction and would help encourage individuals to come forward and seek treatment for their drug usage.”
Some witnesses, however, expressed concerns about decriminalisation, it noted, and argued a “reduction in sanctions ... may result in an increase in the consumption of drugs and an increase in the associated risks to health”.
Anna Quigley, co-ordinator of the Citywide drugs crisis campaign welcomed the report but appealed for momentum to be maintained. “There is enough political support ... There are pieces of work we can start on now.”
In response to a question on the fate of “vulnerable young people who get caught up in the drugs trade” Independent Senator Lynn Ruanne said “a large conversation” was yet to be had on that.
“How do you create some sort of amnesty for people who want out of that world?” she asked.
The report also says the overdose prevention medication Naloxone “be made available to opiod users without the need for a medical prescription” and that training on how to administer it and the drug itself be “made widely available as a matter of urgency”; and, that there be an evaluation of the role “non-medical prescribers” could play in increasing access to methadone, by being empowered to provide it.
