James Heffernan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. It is good to see the Oireachtas and the Department were ready for this issue and got there to shut the stable doors before the horse has entirely bolted. I put it to the Minister, however, that the national drugs strategy is not working. There is widespread availability of all the substances we are seeking to outlaw. I am not from a great metropolis, but I have seen around my own area the availability of class A drugs in the form of MDMA, ecstasy, and cocaine - you name it - every other weekend. It is widespread in every other town and village across the country. It has got to a stage where lads are going out to take a line with friends in front of people. It is almost becoming acceptable and as if they were going out to smoke a cigarette. It is a massive problem and one with which we are failing to deal. If one walks around Dublin any day of the week, one will be met with zombies coming against one who are under the influence of an opiate of some type.

I do not know that a total outlawing of every substance like this works. The issue has been investigated at the very highest levels. Former Presidents of the USA and leaders of South American nations have all fed into the notion that the war on drugs is being lost and cannot be won. What should we do in that case? Going down the road of complete criminalisation of everything has only played into the hands of the major criminal organisations which operate in our cities and towns. I know many young lads who are under a self-imposed exile in the Balearic Islands and England because of moneys owed to these criminal organisations. We do not have the necessary Garda resources to tackle them.

I may be seen as coming out of left field with this one, but it may be that a piloted programme in a small area where the Government has total responsibility for issuing substances in a responsible manner to certain people is a useful idea. We all live in the real world. People are going to use recreational drugs anyway. The fact that they are illegal can make them more attractive. If there is something they are not supposed to do, people may get the idea that there might be something in doing it. The issue of limited and controlled legalisation according to a liberal interpretation has not been tried. It is mooted in a lot of different areas, including in certain places in South America where it is at a very advanced stage. While all these drugs remain illegal, the profits from their sale and supply go to criminal organisations and spawn every sort of social ill that one can imagine. It may be time for democratically elected governments to get control of that. I see how the issue of alcohol is dealt with in Nordic countries where the sale is conducted by state-owned off-licences, which system works very well. Perhaps, it is an idea that can be trashed out here.

It must come from the Department of Health if a dedicated ministerial officeholder with full responsibility for drugs is to be appointed to take soundings from everywhere, including health professionals, drug users, those on the front line of our policing service who try to combat this multimillion euro business, and families affected by the misuse of drugs. Let us have that debate instead of sticking our heads in the sand and pretending drug misuse and the availability of illicit drugs is not an issue in our society. It certainly is.