Mick Clifford: Time to stop criminalising addicts and have a grown-up policy on drugs

Our story begins in 1968, the year the Garda drug squad was formed in response to what was perceived to be a new element of crime in Ireland. 

Its early years were less than frantic. The squad consisted of one detective sergeant, five gardaí, and one “ban garda”, the female member being categorised separately at the time.

“The members of the drug squad have received special training in relation to their duties,” the Garda Commissioner’s annual report in 1971 noted.

That year, 113 people were charged under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1934 and the Health Act 1970, according to the report.

“Of this number, 87 were charged with offences in the Dublin Metropolitan Area, three with offences committed in Drogheda, 18 with offences committed in Sligo, (during a pop festival which was attended by three members of the Drug Squad), one with an offence committed in Arklow, one with an offence committed in Ballina, one with an offence committed in Cork City and two with offences committed in Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, (during a pop festival which was attended by members of the Drug Squad).”

From this remove, I would give my left arm to have been a fly in the wind at those music festivals, watching the plain clothes lads — and possibly the lone “ban” — moving among hippies, asking whether there was any chance, man, of a toke of that joint thingy. Gotcha!

War on drugs 'a moral problem'

This country was behind the curve back then.

Elsewhere, drugs were considered to be a major threat. This prompted the US to launch its war on drugs, which to the greatest extent was to dictate policy across the Western world thereafter.

The war on drugs cast the issue as a moral problem, one in which upstanding citizens had a duty to resist any acceptance of the use of illegal drugs on the basis that it threatened the moral fabric of society.

One early soldier on the frontline ready to defend American values in this war was Elvis Presley. He wanted to be appointed a drug enforcement officer, which probably said plenty about his state of mind at the time.

Instead, president Richard Nixon presented him with a specially made Bureau of Narcotics badge. The presentation in the West Wing was recorded on an iconic photograph, in which Elvis is quite obviously high on prescription drugs, already en route to long-term addiction to prescription drugs which would contribute hugely to his tragic death at 42.

As an allegory for the numbskull war on drugs, the photograph spoke volumes.

Today, the results of this punitive criminal justice-led approach are writ large.

Take one example, 19 October last. In Limerick that day, two men were arrested in possession of over €100,000 worth of suspected heroin, crack cocaine, and alprazolam.

On the same day in Co Roscommon, two other men were arrested in possession of €35,000 worth of cannabis. 

Later that afternoon, a man in his 30s appeared before a district court in Dublin in relation to the seizure of cocaine valued at €350,000.

This is the routine stuff, far removed from the big hauls that occasionally occur in the seas around our island and the major seizures that gardaí make following first-class police work.

Has the punitive approach impacted the demand for mind-altering substances?

Would addiction and attendant social problems have been worse if the proliferation of drugs had been considered in a more enlightened fashion?

After deliberating over six months the Citizens’ Assembly last weekend took a number of votes that should point the way forward. 

A majority of the 87 members voted for a comprehensive health-led approach to the policy of illegal drug use.

An overwhelming majority voted to end the system of prosecuting those caught with illegal drugs for personal use, with 74 voting in favour and just 11 voting to retain the criminal approach.

There was also a narrow majority — one vote — rejecting a proposal to legalise cannabis, a drug that is already available legally in some European countries and US states.

Overall, the assembly appears to have done a good job of attempting to drag drug policy into the 21st century. Now it will take a small modicum of political will to follow through with legislation.

Drugs and communities

This is undoubtedly a tricky area. Drug addiction, primarily through opiates like heroin can reverberate around families and communities, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

The devastation wrecked is primarily down to socio-economic conditions and all that flows from it. 

Cocaine is used by huge swathes of people as a recreational drug of choice. 

For a minority, its use can easily escalate into addiction with horrifying consequences. It is potentially highly dangerous, but how can these dangers be properly highlighted in a context where ingesting the drug is an illegal act?

Then there are the less harmful drugs such as cannabis. This, the general narrative has always had it, is a “gateway drug”, one that is used to inveigle people into the culture of illegal substances and ultimately lead them down the path towards harder drugs which will herald destruction. 

Certainly, cannabis can have major impacts on health and welfare if abused, but how do such dangers measure up compared to the misuse of socially accepted substances such as alcohol?

This week a study published by Maynooth University showed that a quarter of all adults in Ireland — nearly one million people — lived with a problem drinker as a child. The Adverse Childhood Experience comparison study found there was a “significant association” between post-traumatic stress disorder and having a problem drinker in the home. Where is the moral panic about that?

After 50 years of dealing with a societal issue through the lens of the criminal justice system, change is not going to be easy. The assembly has made a start.

It is high time that we had a grown-up policy in this area. Treating addicts as criminals is convenient for some elements of society but is outdated and entirely unfair.

Exposing casual drug users to the possibility of a criminal conviction is equally ludicrous in this day and age.

In an ideal world, all mind-altering substances, including alcohol, would be consumed moderately, extracting the best from the temporary relaxation or release on offer.

Unfortunately in this respect, we live in the real world. 

Continuing to pretend that issues around the taking of drugs, and addiction, need to be dealt with punitively helps nobody and lets those in power off the hook. 

Two cheers for the citizens’ assembly. Let’s see the body politic respond in kind.

• Maynooth University law professor Cian O Concubhair talks on the Mick Clifford podcast this week about the outcome of the Citizens Assembly on drugs.