A Health-Led Approach to Drug Policy

Neasa discussing a health-led approach to drug policy with representatives of the Dublin Drugs Treatment Court and the Ana Liffey Drug Project.

Transcript:

Neasa Hourigan TD: This has been a useful conversation. We are still talking about it in terms of saying that people are getting off scot-free. There is a sense of that in the public; I do not mean the witnesses are saying it. That there is a sense in the public that diversion means that people are getting scot-free for hurting themselves just seems crazy.

Deputy McAuliffe left and is coming back in a minute and I wish to pick up on his point, where he characterised the difficulty of some of us in dealing with this. Mr. Duffin talked about the fact that we are looking at decriminalisation and diversion. It is good to have clarity here. We have a shadow economy and, in effect, we have a wild west. Prohibition has brought about a wild west.

The victims in that are usually young people who live in my constituency, for example. They are completely victims of a system that does not serve them at all. For me personally as a legislator, legalisation is absolutely still on the table. Some of us will continue to argue strongly for it because without full regulation, we will never move away - it will always be coercive sanctions. We will never see full use of consumption rooms, for example, or the full pick-up of every person who needs a social safety net and a health safety net without full regulation of the commonly used drugs we see that are currently illegal. For some of us, it is not quite as clear as being in a difficult space around that issue.