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A LEADING DRUG addiction expert has criticised the makeup of an advisory group for the Citizens’ Assembly on drugs, expressing a concern that the Assembly may be “steered in a specific direction” due to how the panel was formed, including the presence of an anti-cannabis campaigner among its membership.
The intervention comes hours before the Assembly gets underway tomorrow, with former HSE chief executive Paul Reid set to chair the gathering.
Dr Garrett McGovern, who has 25 years experience in public and private practice treating addiction, is one of 29 drug reform campaigners who have expressed concern over whether the Assembly is operating in an “open and transparent manner” following the formation of the advisory group.
Three of these campaigners spoke to The Journal and called for the vice-president of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland, Professor Mary Cannon, to step aside from her role on the advisory group – alleging that her position is “untenable” due to her previous campaigning against the liberalising of drug legislation.
They additionally stressed that the advisory group should be a “neutral” panel of experts.
Citizens’ assemblies have been held in recent years on contested issues in Ireland, including abortion and biodiversity.
In an open letter to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the 29 campaigners raised “grave concerns” over the broader issue of how the Assembly had formed the advisory group, alleging it was done “without the slightest effort” to be “open and transparent”.
McGovern said a “culture of secrecy” has blanketed the Assembly in recent weeks and that this needs to be addressed.
McGovern and other signatories told the Taoiseach that some of his fellow campaigners had raised their issues with Reid, but these efforts “have not been met with the urgency they require”. The letter was sent last week on 6 April.
Among the 29 signatories to the open letter are senior doctors with backgrounds in addiction treatment, individuals representing drug reform organisations and three TDs; Gino Kenny, Violet-Anne Wynne and Thomas Pringle.
Pringle and Wynne have campaigned previously for decriminalisation and Kenny has campaigned for regulated legalisation.
Concerns expressed by signatories who spoke to this website relate to Cannon’s involvement in an anti-cannabis group called the Cannabis Risk Alliance.
Dr Garrett McGovern, policing professor Cian Ó Concubhair and cannabis lobbyist Peter Reynolds all told The Journal that they believed Cannon’s role on the panel was not tenable.
In 2019, the group, which comprises of around 20 GPs, psychiatrists and other medical experts, sent a high-profile letter to the Irish Times which claimed that Ireland is “sleepwalking” into more liberal drug laws. Cannon was among those who sent the letter.
Many of the same anti-cannabis figures released a new letter this week warning against legalising cannabis, saying it “isn’t the answer’ and the drug causes “a huge amount of avoidable misery”.
Cannon is one of two professionals from the 2019 letter by the Cannabis Risk Alliance who did not attach their signature to this week’s letter to the Irish Times.
Contacted by The Journal this week and asked whether she remained a member of the Cannabis Risk Alliance, Cannon told this publication that she could not comment and this was confirmed by an Assembly spokesperson.
In our query we had also asked her to respond to the claim that the Assembly may be “steered in a specific direction” by the advisory group.
This seven-person advisory group includes former Dublin footballer Philly McMahon, who has spoken in the past about how drug issues have affected his family and community, former District Court judge Anna Ryan and Jo-Hanna Ivers who is an associate professor in addiction at Trinity College Dublin.
A former chairman of the Western Region Drug and Alcohol Task Force, Joe O’Neil; a manager from the Health Research Board, Brian Galvin; and the professor in political behaviour at Queen’s University Belfast, John Garry, make up the rest of the advisory group.
Of the remaining six members, McMahon has publicly called for decriminalisation of drugs for personal use following the death of his brother.
A spokesperson for the Citizens’ Assembly told The Journal that the advisory group has an “experienced and diverse” composition, and that members must “perform their role in a balanced and independent manner”, so that they “shall not act in an advocacy capacity on their own behalf, or on behalf of any other individual or group”.
The spokesperson added: “They shall refrain from making public comment on their work for the Citizens’ Assembly, or on the proceedings of the Assembly, whilst the Assembly is ongoing.”
The spokesperson said Reid, as chair, had the “sole discretion” for the appointment of the advisory group.
“The advisory support group has a key role in supporting the Citizens’ Assembly in developing a comprehensive work programme, in line with the Assembly’s Terms of Reference,” the statement added.
The terms, the spokesperson said, outlined the group’s role as supporting Reid in “developing a fair, balanced and comprehensive” programme of work for the Assembly.
“Members of the Group will offer suggestions and feedback on the design of a draft programme, and identify options for specialists, experts, stakeholder groups and others to appear before the Assembly,” the spokesperson said.
“It will be a matter for the chair and members of the Assembly to determine the final work programme.”
Reynolds, who chairs lobby group Cannabis Industry Council Ireland, said he believes Cannon’s position is untenable.
He said she was “entitled to her views and to giving her views by submission to the Citizens’ Assembly”, but that the idea she’s advising it is a matter of serious concern.
McGovern told The Journal that he believes the advisory group should not include people who have “biased or fixed” views towards one side of the “emotive debate” around drug policy, adding that he would “refuse point blank” if asked to join the panel for the Citizens’ Assembly.
The addiction expert previously addressed the Oireachtas Justice Committee on drug policy, which recommended last December that legalisation of certain drugs be examined by the Government as well as allowing some drug cultivation at a “non-profit” level.
“It does seem to me, and I’ve been around long enough to know, that there seems to be some sort of rearguard action to the [committee's report] which was largely a sea change in drug policy,” McGovern said.
“I want clarity about how these members of the advisory group were chosen and why was there no publicity, because I have concerns about this,” he said.
Another signatory of the drug reform letter, Ó Concubhair, who lectures in policing at Maynooth University, told The Journal he was surprised at the makeup of the advisory group – including Cannon’s involvement.
“I and others were very concerned to see that the independent advisory group does not contain a single expert on policing and criminal justice,” he said.
“This is an extraordinary oversight in the recruitment for the independent advisory group, given how central both policing and criminal justice are to the regulatory approach the state has adopted to drug use over the past 50 years.”
Ó Concubhair said he believed the advisory group needed to be strictly non-partisan, but claimed that Cannon had “engaged in political activism” as a result of her role in the Cannabis Risk Alliance.
The lecturer, who favours decriminalisation, said: “Someone like me should not be on this committee – we’re experts but we’re partisan experts – the same as Mary Cannon in my view.”
“People can mean well, they can come to these processes with the best of intentions and they can still fail because they have inherent biases.”
‘Behind closed doors’
In the letter sent to Varadkar in recent days, further issues were raised with how the terms of reference specify that the Assembly shall “engage subject matter experts” to advise on the work programme.
But the letter claimed that the advisory group was appointed “behind closed doors, without the slightest effort to be ‘open and transparent’”, as outlined in the Assembly’s terms of reference.
The letter continued:
“These issues go directly to the integrity of the process for Citizens’ Assemblies. Up to now these have been highly successful exercises in participatory democracy, particularly those on Gender Equality and the Eighth Amendment.
“It is vital that the integrity of this process is restored for Drugs Use and future assemblies.”
The letter included a list of 11 questions about how the Assembly arrived at its decision to make the appointments, before concluding:
“We believe that these questions go the very heart of the integrity and purpose of the Assembly and we would be grateful if they could be answered in full and in good time to make any necessary changes as the first meeting is arranged.
“We all agree this process has the potential to bring much needed, positive change to our
country and citizens. We endeavour to support the process wholly, trusting that is
transparent, fair and balanced.”
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