Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the motion. We could implement all the actions in the motion and matters would certainly improve for people who are suffering under a crazy system, but many of the situations that give rise to the drugs issue will persist. The criminalisation of drugs is a travesty. Above all, it is a gift to the gangs that have been handed by the State a tax-free business that is worth over €2 billion annually. The drugs they sell are not controlled by any quality checks and could have anything in them. When heroin is pushed onto the black market, it gets cut or contaminated with a long list of materials that were never meant to enter the human bloodstream, such as paracetamol, drain cleaner, sand, powdered milk, talcum powder, coffee, brick dust, cement dust and crushed bleach crystals. It could be virtually anything. When a person takes contaminated heroin, it clogs up the veins, damaging one after another around the person's body and destroying it as it travels. This is the reason heroin addicts on the streets look in ill health, more so than just the heroin itself.

One of the most important actions proposed in the motion in this respect is to end criminalisation of possession for personal use. Four years ago members of the joint committee on justice travelled to Portugal to see how its decriminalisation system is working and to talk to those involved. They were told by the Portuguese authorities that in the 15 years since decriminalisation, drug consumption had not increased, Portugal did not become a destiny for drug consumers, the number of crimes directly related to drug addiction decreased, and drug consumers were no longer looked upon or treated as criminals, not only by the authorities but also by society and their families. It put an end to thousands of criminal cases for drug consumption, which cost time and money with absolutely no gain.

It costs the State billions to police drugs. It is a colossal waste of lives, time, work, resources and talent. It does not even work. Almost one in five people in this country take illegal drugs regularly. They grow their own or buy them online, in the streets or in taxi cabs, or they get them delivered to their homes by An Post. Nobody has a clue if what they are consuming is safe. We must seriously consider decriminalisation and the possibility of directly regulating and taxing the sale of the products to the public.

We must also examine the problems behind the trends in drug consumption.

Why are hundreds of thousands of people consuming so-called legal anti-depressants in Ireland? Many people are leading stressful lives. The cost of housing is soaring, wages have stagnated and insecure, low paid, low skill, less rewarding jobs have proliferated in the years since the crash. The truth be told many people have not recovered from the austerity implemented by the Labour-Fine Gael Government. Under the right wing policies of successive Governments we have seen more people working longer for less and becoming more insecure in their jobs and homes. People are increasingly working longer in jobs that they find meaningless. In Britain, in a 2015 YouGov poll people were asked, "Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world?", to which 37% responded it did not. I am sure if people here were asked the same question, the percentage would not be much different. Addressing these structural issues is essential to people’s sense of well-being. We cannot change the meaningfulness of jobs overnight but a massive State run enterprise to change Ireland into a dramatically greener country would provide the kind of employment people could take pride in. If people do not like their jobs, it is even worse that they spend longer at them and travelling to them and have less time for family and friends and the energy that one needs to feel good about life.

Drug consumption, whether legal or illegal substances, is massively connected to people looking out at the world and seeing a meaningful place for them in it, or not. The issue for us is whether we are shaping a society that breeds inclusion and security or inequality and insecurity. The least we should do is stop punishing those who have already been excluded and abused by the liberal economic and social policies of the last few decades.

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