Dr. António Manuel Leitão da Silva:

I am not very familiar with Ireland's section 3, but I will comment on what the Senator mentioned. In our system right now, even though it is not a criminal offence, in order to intersect drug users and take them before the dissuasion commission, we still have to go through paperwork in a police station, seize and weigh the drugs and send the individual involved to the dissuasion commission. The police still have powers of stop and search for these specific matters, but there is no criminal prosecution later on.