Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all the witnesses. I have a couple of small points to make because some of my questions have already been asked. It seems to me that the old adage about the war on drugs not working is very true. That war has generally been on the supply side. We have always been trying to stop supply, find the people who are supplying it, find the dealers and cut them out. We need to look more at the demand side - why society continues to have a demand for all of these substances - and deal with that. This means looking at it more from a medical and addiction perspective. That is what the general consensus is around the table. That said, the big anomaly that always comes up seems to be when the person who is in possession of drugs for their own use is also the same person who has possession of drugs to supply. That is an issue. That crossover will happen, particularly when we have people who unfortunately have an addiction problem and in order to pay for that problem are going to sell drugs to others who have an addiction problem. What methodology is in place, particularly in Portugal, to deal with that particular issue? Is it that the supply of the drugs is coming from a different source which is not the illegal source but one that is regulated and is in place and provided for through some mechanism of the State or with the sanction of the State? I would like to get clarity around that.