Report backs health-led approach to drugs
A report from an Oireachtas committee has called for the full decriminalisation of the possession of drugs for personal use.
The Joint Committee on Drugs Use’s final report, published today (24 June), backs the repeal of section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, stressing that the proposed change should apply to all substances.
Committee chair Gary Gannon TD said that the committee had concluded that the personal possession of drugs for one’s own use should cease to be treated as a criminal matter and should instead be met with a health-led approach.
Public-health issue
The committee was set up to consider the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use, which published its report in January 2024.
Deputy Gannon said that the assembly’s conclusion that drug use in Ireland should be approached primarily as a public-health issue had guided the committee’s work from the outset.
“A health-led response is not a softening of the State’s resolve on drugs; it is a more honest and more effective use of it,” he added.
Wider issues
The committee’s report makes 161 recommendations covering areas that include family and community supports, addiction, the National Drugs Strategy, nitrous oxide and other inhalants, and legal and policy issues.
Committee vice-chair Senator Mary Fitzpatrick said that the report called for a health-led response that prioritised prevention, harm reduction, and recovery.
“It also recognises that addiction is often linked to wider issues – poverty, trauma, mental health and housing – and that these must be addressed together,” she added.
Dublin Drug Treatment Court
Among the committee’s legal and policy recommendations is that the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration place the Dublin Drug Treatment Court on a statutory, national footing and expand its availability to all regions.
Set up in 2001, the court is a District Court that provides supervised treatment, education, and rehabilitation for offenders with problem drug use as an alternative to prison.
The committee also calls for the publication of an independent evaluation of the court undertaken by the Centre for Justice Innovation and for the findings be implemented “as a matter of urgency”.
The report recommends that garda priorities to be reoriented away from possession offences and towards organised criminal supply networks and drug-related intimidation.
Drug-checking services
It backs the expansion of non-custodial and therapeutic responses within the criminal-justice system – including restorative justice, referral programmes, and health-oriented interventions.
The report recommends that legislation be introduced to allow the operation of drug-checking services, and that appropriate policing arrangements be put in place to ensure individuals can access these services without risk of arrest, prosecution, or other criminal sanction.
It also says that naloxone should be rescheduled under legislation to allow it to be made available over the counter, rather than on prescription only.
Naxolone is an injectable or nasal drug that counteracts opioid overdoses.