THE CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY on Drugs Use convenes for the final time this weekend. There, the Assembly will complete its work by voting on recommendations for potential changes to how Ireland regulates drugs.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to end the catastrophic policy failure that is Ireland’s ‘War on Drugs’.
As experts in criminal justice, health and policing, we wish to draw attention to five points of information relevant to the Assembly’s deliberations. These points were not fully and clearly addressed in previous meetings.
1. Drug criminalisation was never evidence based, nor undertaken in good faith
Drugs are criminalised in Ireland under the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1977. This law makes it a criminal offence to possess, cultivate or produce a number of drugs for personal use, or sale or supply. The 1977 Act was designed to fulfil Ireland’s obligations under the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961.
The Single Convention was in large part designed and imposed by the United States of America. The 1977 Act in Ireland mirrored similar legal changes across the world, following pressure from US President Richard Nixon who announced the US’s ‘War on Drugs’ in 1971.
Global drug policy has long been dominated by the US and its long-standing domestic preoccupation with drugs, leading to the world’s highest imprisonment rate. There are two essential points to understand about US (and therefore Irish) drug policy.
First, drug criminalisation was not based on evidence that this would reduce risks to health. Ireland’s 1977 Act, like the Single Convention, asserts that certain drugs are so dangerous that the only appropriate way to regulate them is through criminalisation.
However, evidence complied by David Nutt and others shows that many criminalised drugs – such as cannabis, MDMA (ecstasy) and psilocybin (magic mushrooms) – are significantly less harmful to individual health and to society as a whole than alcohol or tobacco.
Second, US drug policy, which so profoundly influenced global drug policy, was deeply rooted in a desire to suppress ethnic minorities and political opponents. For example, cannabis criminalisation in the US is deeply connected to racist anti-Mexican politics.
Nixon’s own advisors have since admitted that the goal of criminalising drugs was to vilify and disrupt the anti-war movement and Black communities. Questions of race, politics and migration control, not evidence of health benefits, were the key drivers in early American-led efforts to criminalise cannabis and other drugs.
This history of racist, unevidenced US drug policy is ultimately the source of Ireland’s 1977 Act. Given this fact, the Assembly should be bold in recommending significant progressive reforms based on the best available evidence.
2. Most drug use is not problematic
Understandably, the Citizens’ Assembly has mostly focused on problematic drug use, such as addiction. However, the vast majority of drug use is not problematic. For most people who consume prohibited drugs, the experience is positive and valuable rather than destructive.
Because the politicisation of the War on Drugs is rooted in deeply moralised language which often characterises drugs as ‘evil’, it is taboo to speak of these realities.
This, combined with an exclusive focus on the most destructive forms of drug use, creates a climate of intense fear around drug law reform debates, despite the obvious need to distinguish between drugs that are more and less harmful, and between problem and non-problem use.
These same fears have arisen in the work of the Assembly. We hope these fears will not hamper its members recommending, at minimum, decriminalising the possession of all drugs, which has been pioneered successfully by Portugal and other jurisdictions.
3. Will decriminalising drugs lead to increased problem use?
Much of the fear of change we describe above is rooted in a belief that legal changes will lead to increased problem use. Indeed, Assembly members have voiced concerns that if the stigma of drug use was removed by decriminalisation, problem use and harm would inevitably increase. This fear is supported by a belief that criminalisation stops problem use, and that any rise in (reported) use is inherently problematic.
The first point to make about this fear is that the evidence from Portugal and other jurisdictions pioneering more humane drug policies does not indicate that problem use necessarily increases following decriminalisation.
Second, the evidence does not show that criminalisation prevents drug use. Drug use has grown in Ireland in recent decades, and drug production has increased around the world during the War on Drugs. The failure of criminalisation is also evident when we compare drug use between jurisdictions that have ‘liberal’ drug laws, versus those with harsh criminalisation. For example, the Netherlands (where cannabis can be purchased over the counter) has significantly lower levels of cannabis use than France, which has historically employed an aggressively punitive approach to cannabis use. In any case, problem use is more important than simple prevalence.
4. The War on Drugs causes wider harms
The Assembly has heard a significant amount of oral testimony about the catastrophic failure of Ireland’s War on Drugs to reduce harm to individuals. Speakers with lived experience of problematic drug use have described in compelling detail how the War on Drugs actually magnified the harm they experienced.
Unfortunately, the Assembly has heard insufficient research evidence of the profoundly corrupting effects on policy and practices in the areas of health, policing and justice.
First, the War on Drugs gave police forces around the world unprecedented powers of search and seizure that are subject to little or no oversight or review. Though drug use does not differ across class or ethnic lines, drug search powers are overwhelmingly used to target economically and racially marginalised communities. These powers are overused by police, with only a tiny proportion of searches resulting in an arrest (and not necessarily for drug possession). This encourages lazy policing practices around evidence-gathering, while destroying community trust in policing.
Criminalisation also introduced toxic incentives into policing. Overwhelmingly, people plead guilty in Irish courts. Unlike other crimes, moreover, drug offences seldom have a complainant whose evidence can be tested. Therefore, drug policing leads to an almost perfect ‘clearance’ or ‘detection’ rate. This incentivises police to go for the ‘low hanging fruit’ of drug possession to appear effective. Recently, following criticism of its handling of public safety in Dublin, An Garda Síochána mostly increased drug policing, instead of addressing the violence that motivated the public outcry.
More broadly, the stigma of drug use due to criminalisation undermines effective public health and addiction treatment. Portugal’s experience indicates that once this stigma is removed, health outcomes improve. In Ireland, a 50-year strategy of criminalisation has not prevented some of the highest overdose death rates in Europe.
5. Decriminalising drug use is essential to reduce harmful stigma
Criminal law is designed to stigmatise. The 1977 Act therefore stigmatises all use by design, whether problematic or not. The Assembly has heard plenty of evidence that the harms of stigmatisation for those experiencing addiction cannot be removed while possession is criminalised.
If the Assembly is serious about removing this destructive stigma, it must recommend, at minimum, the decriminalisation of all drugs for personal use, and explore forms of legal regulation for those drugs that are less harmful, or that could actually help people when used medicinally.
Those who defend criminalisation in government, policing, the media and health often argue that all use necessarily deserves stigma because it supports violent drug black markets. While this logic conveniently ignores both how stigma compounds the harms of problematic use and violence in markets for other commercial goods, we previously argued that this also denies the state’s responsibility for creating violent markets by choosing criminalisation as the sole regulatory response to drugs.
A recommendation of decriminalisation alone will not address all harms, particularly those caused by violent drug black markets. As the Assembly has already heard, drug legalisation need not equate to a commercial ‘free for all’. Bread and morphine are both currently legal in Ireland, but are rightly subject to drastically different forms of regulation. In recent years, many jurisdictions have tried radically different models of decriminalisation or legal regulation. Ireland is in a perfect position to learn from these experiences and optimise its own legal framework.
The Assembly can still seize on this generationally significant moment by being bold in its recommendations. We implore its members to let go of fear and vote for sensible forms of drug regulation, based on best evidence.
Dr Garrett McGovern is a GP specialising in Addiction Medicine and Medical Director of the Priority Medical Clinic, Dundrum. Dr Cian Ó Concubhair is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Maynooth University School of Law & Criminology. Cian’s written submission to the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use is available here. Cian was convicted of cultivating cannabis for sale or supply in 2010. Dr Ian Marder is Assistant Professor in Criminology at Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology. Ian’s presentation to the Citizens’ Assembly can be watched back here.
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