Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

The motion is commendable and on the face of it there should not be anything in it with which anyone in the House could take issue, but such is the knee-jerk nature of our politics that the Government has seen fit to table an amendment to the motion commending itself and indicating that it is doing all it can with regard to this problem. This is an attitude of whistling past the graveyard that ill suits the Government.

The motion makes only one reference to the actions of the Government and it is a very mild criticism of the effectiveness of Government policy. The motion calls on the Government to acknowledge the many shortfalls in the implementation of policy and to recommit itself to the overall strategic objective of the national drugs strategy 2001-08. It is not too much of a step down for any Government to admit that a policy may not be working as well as it could be. In the past week alone, the Taoiseach has stated that the decentralisation programme will not achieve what the Government originally hoped. If the Government is prepared to make statements of that nature about a policy such as decentralisation, why can it not do so about an issue of much wider significance which affects the lives and health of so many citizens? On those grounds I am very disappointed that the Government has seen fit to table an amendment to this motion.

The Government amendment is in the name of the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs whose Department has responsibility for the national drugs strategy. However, the amendment only refers to one person, the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, who has responsibility for drugs issues, and he is present in the Chamber this evening. If I were the Minister of State I would be very afraid of that reference because it seems to be a bit like the chairman of the football club giving a vote of confidence in his manager. The Minister of State is taking the flak for the failures of the policies of the Government and Department. This is unfair because I acknowledge the Minister of State has a personal commitment to sorting out a series of problems that many of us will readily admit are intractable.

The scope of this motion shows how complicated this issue is and the question is whether it is a justice, resources or health issue. The Green Party is of the view that this issue has arisen as a result of the current culture. Double standards apply to the use of any drug, legal or illegal, and there is a celebration by society of some drug use. This attitude sends out a mixed message to many young people who decide that if it is all right for State sources and adult authority figures to endorse a particular mode of behaviour, they are prepared to go down another route and experiment by using and abusing drugs. Their lives take a turn into dark alleys by their making those choices.

The Government chose not to bring legislation to this House to allow for regulation in the area of the advertising of alcohol products. The Government instead chose self-regulation. If one takes alcohol out of that equation and replaces it with cocaine or heroin and the Government informed those involved in that industry — it is an industry — that Government policy favoured self-regulation, this would be an indication of the level of double standards being applied towards any type of abuse of any type of drug. Until we are prepared to tackle those double standards, this debate will have painful consequences for all concerned.

There is extensive public concern about the existence of a drugs economy and a drugs society. I refer to the paraphernalia that attaches to this culture and the use of violence and deadly weapons to enforce that violence. The Government must adopt some form of weighing scales approach to our policy regarding people who come out of the shadows and practise these dark arts. They are allowed to operate because the Government has made the choice that this is overwhelmingly a justice rather than a health issue. It is taking a military approach to this issue rather than a community resource approach. Until the Government and the people who make statements on behalf of the Government, who seem to thrive on the whole idea of derring-do, change course, this problem will only intensify and worsen for many in our society.

I hope this is a message which the Minister of State will be prepared to take to some of the Cabinet members because they seem to think that this is a problem that can be solved by the hard man approach, so to speak. I do not believe this approach will work. It is also indicative that those who use and abuse drugs are untouchable and the areas in which they live are no-go communities. It is as if we have drawn metaphorical lines of barbed wire around people and communities instead of engaging and tacking the root causes and problems which these people and their communities face daily. We regard it as a problem that can be tackled in isolation, but this is not so. We have spent decades trying to deal with this type of problem in isolation. The only effect has been that the isolation of the areas concerned has become deeper and the problem has expanded throughout the country.

It is not rocket science to understand that the policies are not working. The Minister of State has a strong personal commitment in this area and he would like to see solutions. It may be that the five-year term of a Government, or even less in some instances, does not allow for an individual politician or Government to bring about those solutions. However, small steps to challenge the nature of the culture of double standards could be taken. We fail to treat people for the nature of the condition preferring instead to treat them as some kind of stain on society. The Government adopts an approach that its war on drugs can be measured by the amount of drugs seized, on which the law enforcement agencies are to be commended, but we all know it is the tip of the iceberg approach. The more drugs that are seized, the more drugs that exist in society. This is a failure on the part of society. The Government's strongest measure challenging the drugs culture in the past year has been the banning of magic mushrooms.

Young people looking for escape choose to use everyday products such as solvents and legal substances such as alcohol and they are venturing into the use of illegal substances. Many people finish up with cocaine and heroin addiction. This is a route that has been chosen for them because of a degree of indifference that the system and the Government is responsible for through its lack of political leadership.

My hope is that a motion of this type will spur a change of thinking so that in future we will not have the knee-jerk reactions of a Government amendment defending itself and that instead we will have a proper engagement, dealing with this issue in a way that it can and must be dealt with. It is a challenge for all of us within the political system, Government and Opposition, those who are in government and those who will be. It requires a long-term approach to a problem that we have only made worse by fiddling around the edges.

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