Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. On her request that we hold off on proposing amendments to legislation until public consultation, I suggest that she also takes that advice and holds off on amendments to legislation until there is public consultation. The Minister of State mentioned unintended consequences. I agree that lots of things have unintended consequences. I have spent many nights this week researching those unintended consequences. I will give the best example I can considering it is a new area to me. In Canada, changes to how OxyContin was distributed and manufactured changed the nature of drug use. The manufacturers changed to OxyNeo, which is a liquid form of the drug that changes to a gel. OxyContin was a huge street drug - a prescription drug that people used to grind down and inject. When OxyNeo was introduced as a result of the new legislation, it became a huge health issue because addicts tried to break it down to turn it into gel. Injecting gel has very negative consequences. People then moved to using fentanyl, which is much stronger and which resulted in an increase in the number of overdoses and a greater risk to health. I ask the Government to hold off on including any more drugs in this Bill so that we can feed this type of research into the public consultation before any move is taken.