Citizens’ Assembly expected to recommend liberalisation of laws around common illegal drugs

The Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use is expected to recommend liberalisation of laws around possession of common illegal drugs when it votes on proposals this weekend. The exact extent of the changes to be recommended by the assembly will only emerge after members vote on their wording at a sixth session on Saturday.

Assembly chairman Paul Reid has said there is a “strong mood for change” around the laws on drug use following six months of deliberations on the issue.

The questions to be voted on include the areas of legal frameworks, resourcing and funding, delivery of services, health-led policymaking, prevention and education. Other questions will ask if specific drugs should be legalised and regulated, and what models of regulation are appropriate.

Meanwhile, GPs have highlighted the negative impacts of legalising cannabis in a statement issued in advance of the assembly’s deliberations this weekend.

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“Drug use has profound and lasting adverse effects on individuals, families, communities and our wider society,” the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) says in its intervention around the debate on drugs liberalisation.

“While evidence indicates marijuana and cannabinoids may have potential therapeutic benefits, there are notable public health and health impacts associated with its use,” the group warns in a statement issued by its clinical director Dr Diarmuid Quinlan.

“Cannabis is a dangerous drug and a serious public health concern,” according to the statement. “The ICGP discourages cannabis use, especially in high-risk populations such as youth, those with a personal or family history of mental disorder, pregnant women, and women who are breastfeeding.”

The family doctors’ group says the HSE and Department of Health should improve surveillance efforts to ensure data is available on the short- and long-term health effects of cannabis, “especially emergency department visits and hospitalisations, impaired driving, workplace impairment and worker-related injury and safety, and prevalence of psychiatric and addictive disorders, including cannabis-use disorder”.

It also calls for stronger public health messaging on the adverse health effects of cannabis and cannabinoid inhalation and ingestion, “with an emphasis on reducing initiation and frequency of cannabis use among adolescents, especially high potency products; use among women who are pregnant or contemplating pregnancy; and avoiding cannabis-impaired driving”. The group expresses support for Government plans to refer people found in possession of drugs for personal use for health assessment, provided this is adequately resourced.

It also says there should be “public health-based strategies, rather than incarceration” for people caught with small quantities of cannabis for personal use.

The statement was developed after a motion on the issue was passed at the group’s AGM last May.