The immediate short-term jailing of people found in possession of illegal drugs such as cocaine, even for personal use, was suggested by a District Court judge last night.
In a speech at University College Cork, Judge James McNulty said that while society had to address both the issues of drug supply and demand, the District Court had an important role to play in sentences imposed for drug possession. "I believe that the District Court has a significant role to play in relation to demand by making possession of controlled drugs - even for own use - a hazardous activity for which, if you are convicted, there may be serious and far-reaching consequences," he said.
Judge McNulty said that much of the recent media coverage and commentary in relation to cocaine abuse appeared to have overlooked the fact that actual possession of drugs is a criminal offence and people should be aware of the risks if caught.
"If the criminal aspect is not clearly stated and understood, citizens might begin to think that using illicit drugs is merely a lifestyle choice or just a health and safety issue," said Judge McNulty, who sits in the District Court in west Cork.
Stressing that he was speaking in a personal capacity, Judge McNulty told law students at the faculty of law at University College Cork that there had been many hard lessons in recent months for teenagers and young adults about the dangers of drug abuse.
"Young lives have been lost and families devastated. There have been appeals to reason and responsibility and appeals to conscience and to common sense, The great and the good have spoken. The heartbroken have spoken," he said.
"But after all the appeals, the warnings, the persuasion and the discouragement, when all is said and done, the fact remains that possession of controlled drugs is a criminal offence.
"The courts may now concentrate more on the deterrent aspect of sentencing." Judge McNulty pointed out that the law prescribes a fine or imprisonment for up to 12 months for possession of a controlled drug such as cocaine, ecstasy or heroin, before he went on to outline some of the consequences of the recreational use of such drugs.
Such drug use contributes directly to the profits of serious crime and serious criminals and helps to generate other crime from burglary and bag snatching to maiming and murder, while also putting strains on a daily basis on families, gardaí, hospitals and health services, he said.
"If not challenged, this activity will, in due course, deplete the financial and human resources of the State for the care of those whose illness or disability is not self-induced. Is a fine an appropriate penalty for such a crime?" he asked.
Judge McNulty said that in the past year there had been a notable increase in the misuse of drugs in west Cork with incidents of sudden, unprovoked violence and he estimated that apart from drug offences, 50 per cent of cases now coming before him were fuelled by drugs or alcohol.
This had led in recent months to a re-evaluation of the offence of "simple possession" in west Cork and it now seemed to him that the imposition of a fine on conviction for possession of cocaine may no longer be the appropriate penalty. "On the contrary, it may be that in the public interest and for the purpose of general deterrence of this particular type of offence, that the imposition of an immediate custodial sentence of short duration is the more appropriate penalty for this offence," he said.
He also cautioned that failure to tackle the problem now may lead to what he experienced in the Children's Court in Dublin in 2002. Then, he witnessed the devastation heroin had caused to teenagers who had lost their parents to addiction in the mid-1980s.