There've been few national debates which have plagued the Irish media landscape like a bad smell over the last few years and, like a bad smell, they tend to sour the atmosphere and lead to each side blaming the other. One such debate which continues to rage on is over the decriminalisation of drugs.
The debate sprung up again in the wake of the publication of the government's 'national drug strategy' last week. This suggested the possibility of decriminalising the possession of small amounts of drugs for 'personal use', which is an oddly vague specification. For those of us who are forced to spend some 12 hours in the foetal position in a darkened room every time we're so much as near a bottle of Calpol, this won't be an issue. However, any more self-declared 'sesh-heads' could make an argument for lugging around quantities of Class A that'd make even Pablo Escobar blush.
A young Irish Times journalist, Jennifer Purcell, has penned a piece countering an article entitled “Ireland’s youth will suffer from looser drug laws” published in the same newspaper in the immediate aftermath of the announcement. The original article was very much of the opinion that the Taoiseach and Minister for Health, Simon Harris, were determined to turn the country into some debauched recreation of the Wild West, which obviously stirred the ire of many on Twitter
Bad journalism that ignores data and instead favours anecdotes. Decriminalisation helps vulnerable addicts. https://t.co/RVBqAKmdXD
— Nadia Reeves Long (@NadiaReevesLong) July 19, 2017
The author of the article, Sean Dunne, contended that this current generation of Irish youth couldn't be trusted to control themselves in a world of drug decriminalisation, asserting,
“They [millennials] know that drugs are dangerous and they know that one moment of madness can have life-altering effects, yet they are thrill-seekers and want to experiment just as Generation X did."
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However, it's important to note that, as Jennifer Purcell points out in her article, “decriminalisation is not legalisation”, yet Sean Dunne asserts that decriminalisation would essentially be a tacit endorsement of drug-taking.
However, the crux of Sean Dunne's argument rests on the assumed idea that the current approach to tackling issues surrounding drug abuse is working which is patently untrue. As Purcell states,
“Evidence from elsewhere shows that an innovative approach to drug use can be successful. Look at Portugal, which in 2001 decriminalised the personal possession of all drugs. Since then, drug-induced deaths have decreased dramatically and drug use has declined overall among 15 to 24-year-olds, those most at risk of initiating problem drug use.”
She argues that, given a reported half of all Irish university students experiment with drugs to some degree that, criminalising them is not in reality a valid option. Instead an approach to actual drug abuse as a health problem and not as a criminal problem would be far more beneficial, which many people agreed was a better course of action.
Let us know your thoughts in the Facebook coments, would the decriminalisation of drugs help ameliorate the issues with Irish drug culture?
