Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This Government and previous Governments have failed to grasp the winds of change in drug reform. When other states are changing course, I would argue that this State has stagnated in drug reform. In the past 20 years 10,000 people in this State have died of drug-related deaths, which is an incredible statistic. That is 500 people every year in the State. I would argue that if these people had different postal addresses and codes, the response from this Government and previous Governments would have been very different. We are in an unsustainable situation and the amount of resources that go into criminalising people for drug use does not work. Even US President Joe Biden made an announcement last week on reform in the US policy on cannabis use and so forth, and that is welcome, but in this State we criminalise people for using drugs. The majority of people in the prison population are there for drug offences. The resources that go into criminalising people simply do not work and we need to do something very different.

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