Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It is tempting in a debate such as this to bash the Government. Perhaps I will end up doing so. However, it is not where I intend to start. I am pretty good at it.

We need reflection as well as political conflict in the area of substance abuse. It was drawn to my attention that the UN International Narcotic Control Board published a report today which should be disturbing reading. It lists Ireland among the countries where cocaine use is increasing, and among the European countries with a high incidence of cannabis use. We must deal with this issue in a number of areas.

What the last speaker stated is entirely true and extremely important. For far too long we have ignored the significant correlation between social deprivation and the use of heroin. We have created the most unequal society in terms of income distribution in the OECD, outside of the United States. According to a variety of indicators, this is a profoundly unequal society. We seem to have an unspoken consensus that it is not appropriate to speak about the vulgar expenditure of the beneficiaries of the affluence of the past ten years. In the 1980s we were among the highest spenders on executive cars. I presume we are now at the top of that list.

We never managed to put together an ethic to address the affluent and state to them that they are part of a society from which they have benefited and it is now their turn to give back. Instead, we decided that we will capitulate to the greed of the extremely rich. We have done so in a variety of ways. Before we get into a silly political debate, I do not believe it began in 1997. However, it was accentuated as affluence and riches became more apparent. We decided through the political process to hand out an extraordinarily disproportionate amount of our national affluence to people who were already well-off. We left those already deprived in a worse situation with housing crises, poor uptake of education and a bad health service.

There will be arguments forever as to whether there are sufficient places on drug rehabilitation programmes for the people who want to take them. Every week contradictory figures are presented. However, there does seem to be a succession of personal testimonies from people stating they cannot get access to drug treatment programmes. I am not entirely certain as to why that is. I know the classic answer to dealing with drugs involves cutting off supply, education and demand reduction. I am surprised the phrase "demand reduction" did not appear much in the Minister of State's script. He used the word "prevention". However, "demand reduction" is a more appropriate phrase.

I had the interesting experience in 1998 of visiting Switzerland, along with the Minister of State's colleague Deputy Pat Carey, and Deputies Gregory and Durkan as members of the Joint Committee on European Affairs. We observed a heroin prescription programme in the city of Saint Gallen. The most striking element was the unanimous view of city authorities, police, medical people and everyone else we met that it was successful and that it achieved a number of purposes, including stabilising the lives of people who were unsuccessful in a variety of heroin withdrawal programmes. The other major achievement was a reduction in drug-related crime.

It was astonishing to hear the police in particular speak about it. They ended up with the most ironic job of all, as they transported the high-quality heroin from storage to the clinics where people came on a daily basis and spent three Swiss francs to be provided with clean heroin and needles and an extremely healthy environment in which to inject. Everybody states that such programmes do not work and can produce statistics to show that some of the Swiss experiments did not work. However, we must accept that the standardised programmes, such as those in the United States, did not work either.

Addressing drugs as drugs per se and stating repeatedly that we will stop does not appear to work. We must deal with larger global issues such as the chaos in Afghanistan, which allows the world to be flooded with heroin. Among the horrors of the Taliban regime, one of the positives was a strong ethical belief that the production and sale of narcotic substances was improper and wrong and they endeavoured to stop it. Once the Taliban went, the warlords, who are now the allies of the Western world, returned to their old habits. We must address our friends in the United States, about whose feelings my colleagues on the other side of the House are so sensitive. We must ask them in a positive and reasonably friendly way to take action on the renewed trade from Afghanistan. That is one way to deal with supply.

If we are to deal with the willingness to use drugs in this country, we must examine the composition of society and those whose introduction to drugs is a spin-off from a hopeless life without prospects or a future. We must transform their lives, give them hope, a future, a chance for an education, a job and an escape from the appalling circumstances in which they live. Despite having the resources we have failed to do that.

If we are to persuade young people that drug taking is bad we must be honest with them. While there are good reasons to persuade young people not to use cannabis we should not generate scare headlines about it. Although we know the effects of long-term cannabis use, the vast majority of young cannabis users are not long-term users. Whether it is justifiable in societal terms to give a young person a criminal record for possession of a small amount of cannabis is a valid question. From talking to young people I know the gardaí do random searches of young people who happen to have long hair and beards and are in certain parts of the cities. Although they behave impeccably, the gardaí search them, in some cases, several times. Whether that creates a climate in which they can be persuaded that they should avoid illegal substances is questionable. A culture that glorifies alcohol and that spends million of euro on cigarettes is in a difficult position from which to lecture young people on the danger of substances that will not kill a fraction of the number of people who will die from alcohol and tobacco in any year.