Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 11 July 2024
Committee on Drugs Use
Decriminalisation, Depenalisation, Diversion and Legalisation: Discussion (Resumed)
9:30 am
Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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I thank Mr. Leitão da Silva. He highlighted how Portugal is on a journey ahead of us. Everybody at the moment seems to be talking about Portugal, or at least we certainly are, and what it has been doing over recent decades. On the philosophy of policing and treating drug use as an inevitable consequence of where society is, without criminalising people, has the police force in Portugal taken the decision that drug-taking exists in society, that we cannot really interdict it and that it is on the rise, as Mr. Leitão da Silva said, for which supply is obviously a major part? Does he see rising rates of recreational drug use as a problem for society, despite its decriminalisation? I refer just to societal issues.