An overhaul of the Republic’s approach to drug use could be considered after an Oireachtas committee recommended that possession of all drugs for personal use be decriminalised.
Members of the Joint Committee on Drugs Use have said legislation that lists drug possession as an offence – section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 – should be repealed.
The committee on Wednesday published its final report, which included 161 recommendations aimed at moving Ireland towards a health-led, rather than criminal, approach to drug possession.
With decriminalisation, drugs would remain illegal but a person found in possession of them for personal use would not receive a criminal sanction.
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The committee was established to respond to 36 recommendations made by the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use in 2024. The assembly – comprised of 99 citizens and chaired by Paul Reid, former HSE chief executive, also recommended the State take a comprehensive health-led policy response to drug use.
Speaking at the unveiling of the assembly’s report, Reid said the State had a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to help people affected by addiction.
Gary Gannon, chair of the Oireachtas drugs use committee, said cross-party members of the group “endorse the direction the assembly set”.
The Social Democrats TD said the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use was “not a softening of the State’s resolve on drugs; it is a more honest and more effective use of it”.
Gannon said criminalising people for their own drug use “has not reduced harm” and that “a different approach is both possible and overdue”.
In its report, the committee made 161 recommendations including the need to introduce more family and community supports, address intergenerational trauma and introduce an overhaul of legal and policy issues.
It argued the decriminalisation of possession for personal use should apply equally to all illicit drugs. People found in possession of drugs “should be offered all supports and health resources that are required”, the report said.
The committee called for members of An Garda Síochána and local authorities to receive trauma and harm-reduction training to “inform their work with individuals and communities affected by drug misuse and addiction”.
The report also included a number of recommendations around nitrous oxide – a gas designed for medical and catering settings that has been increasingly used recreationally – including “a prohibition on the sale of large-volume nitrous oxide canisters intended for recreational use” and a ban on social media advertising for such products.
During its work, the committee heard from policymakers, legal and medical experts, service providers, academics and community organisations, as well as people with experience of drug use and recovery.
“Their testimony grounded our deliberations in reality,” Gannon said.
Senator Mary Fitzpatrick, committee vice-chair, said the nature of drug use in Ireland “has changed completely” in the last 20 years.
“Where once it was often associated with heroin use in disadvantaged and marginalised communities, today we are dealing with widespread poly-substance use. Cocaine, cannabis, prescription drugs and new substances are now present in every county – in villages, towns and cities alike.”
Speaking about the report in the Dáil on Wednesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the State had “moved to a health-led approach in terms of drug addiction”. The approach “hasn’t been a criminal response in the main”, he said.
However, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said the Government was “not taking a health-led approach”.
She said drug deaths in Ireland were almost three times the European average and nearly one person died every day.
“It’s hard to articulate the impact that that has on their families, their communities, on everything,” she said, adding that the Government had an opportunity “to do something here that will literally save lives”.
The Taoiseach said the report had just been published and the departments of Health and Justice would examine its recommendations.
“We’re going to give a very serious consideration,” he said, adding that as a former minister for health he believed the response “has been predominantly health-led”.
However, he said “that doesn’t guarantee that consumption goes down”.
Meanwhile, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan on Wednesday said he believed Ireland should be “very careful” about making legal changes that could increase the incidence of drug taking.
He told reporters that he had not yet read the committee’s report but he would consider it.
In practical terms, he said, people with drugs for personal use were “to a large extent” not prosecuted. A health response was needed, he said, but the Government “cannot ignore” international experience.
He noted how Canada’s British Columbia province recently ended its decriminalisation of drugs for personal use after three years. He also said there was “widespread recognition” that legalisation of drugs in parts of the US had “simply increased” the incidence of drug taking.
“We need to have a consistent message for young people; drugs damage and destroy people’s lives,” he said.
