YES

Yes, because criminals control its distribution and its illegality is attractive to impressionable young people, says Senator James Heffernan

IF people want to relax of an evening, and if they smoke a joint to do that, well, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s wrong to criminalise a person for using a recreational drug.

Go to any festival in the country and you’ll see recreational drugs everywhere. There’s not a major hassle about that.

People aren’t fighting or arguing. People are enjoying themselves and relaxing. The problems come from where these people are buying their product.

Some of the strains that people are smoking are quite dangerous.

There is a strain of cannabis, I’ve been told, which is the only strain that can be found around Dublin — ‘skunk’ — which is far more harmful than other strains of marijuana and hashish that we have seen in the past, but it’s because drugs are controlled by criminal organisations that are unscrupulous, who don’t give a damn so long as they are in control of what they are selling to people.

Criminal organisations are destroying communities and earning vast amounts of money from the control of the drug industry. You’ll never beat them, because the demand will always be there.

My brother would have worked in a school in Limerick City, near enough to Moyross, and of his past pupils alone it’s nearly gone into double figures, the numbers that have been killed through gangland feuds and violence.

Instead of trying to fight them through the criminal justice system, why doesn’t the Government get its act together and say, ‘Let us control it.’

Why not pilot this idea in a certain area, for a certain length of time? If it doesn’t work, we can go back to the old way, but we should be confident enough to grasp the bull by the horns and face reality.

A lot of other countries are looking at it in a different way. Portugal has decriminalised cannabis. Look at the experiments in Denver, Colorado.

Let’s have the debate. Let’s go to these places. Let’s learn from their experiences.

We’re not going to be re-inventing the wheel here. It’s something that is being tried and tested in other areas. Let’s learn from them.

I think crime has been completely reduced in Denver, Colorado, as a result of the legalisation of the sale of recreational marijuana. It’s lauded as a success. It seems to be working.

Let’s learn from the experiences of places like Amsterdam, who maybe have a different experience. Let’s try and do it right.

The drugs policy has been a monumental failure. Cannabis, MDMA, cocaine, are widely available, not only in the cities, but in our towns and villages as well.

Tolerance of drug use is becoming more and more common. For instance, I was around at Christmas and I was quite amazed how blatantly people were taking recreational drugs and nobody was batting an eyelid.

Society has changed a huge amount in the last 20 years.

Our criminal justice system, as it’s set up, is not able to deal with it. The Gardaí don’t have the resources necessary to fight a drugs war.

Fighting a war on drugs is a losing battle that cannot be won. Drugs have existed. They will continue to exist. They will always exist.

Part of the attraction, and part of the reason people will experiment, is because they are illegal. People’s curiosity will get them to want to try things out, to experiment.

If decriminalisation happened, that attraction goes with it.

Burying our heads in the sand, pretending that it’s not happening, is not facing up to reality.

A lot of people, here in Leinster House, could do with getting out a bit more and seeing exactly what’s happening amongst young people, because there seems to be an unwillingness to face up to the drugs issue.

It’s happening, so let’s talk about it.

Indep. Sen James Heffernan is speaking at Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s conference at 4.30pm tomorrow at Dublin City University, Glasnevin, D9. Visit: http://ssdp.com.

NO

No, because it reduces IQ, induces paranoia and users are more likely to develop schizophrenia says Dr Chris Luke

MY position in life, as an emergency consultant, is all about overcrowding in our emergency departments. The health service is besieged by lifestyle choices resulting in diseases. One of those is cannabis-related problems.

Although you get pro-cannabis people invariably talking about how cannabis promotes peace and quiet and love and harmony, it simply doesn’t, in my view.

It makes people very impulsive, very paranoid, and part of the disinhibition in some people results in violence.

The great cocktail that drives the horrible street violence we see nowadays is the ABC — alcohol, benzodiazepines (or sleeping tablets) and cannabis.

Occasionally, you’ll get accidents. In France, they estimate that about 7% of car-accident deaths are partly the result of driving under the influence of cannabis.

In the last five years, there has been growing medical concern about cannabis-induced psychosis and psychiatric ailments.

The increased strength of ‘skunk’, which is a hybrid of older cannabis plants, results in a threefold concentration of THC (the principal psychoactive ingredient of cannabis), and, secondly, a threefold increase in the risk of psychosis.

Cannabis makes some people go mad. About 10% of users — and we’re talking four, five, six joints a day – will experience psychiatric illness. Anybody who has considered cannabis for more than two seconds will be aware there are psychological/psychiatric issues.

If you Google ‘cannabis and schizophrenia’, you’ll come up with a huge list of publications going back 30, 40 years — particularly research in the last five years, from Trinity College, in Dublin, and the Maudsley Institute, in London — suggesting that there is a threefold increase in the likelihood of schizophrenia developing in heavy cannabis users.

The medical benefits of cannabis are a lot of spoofery. As far as I can see, the medical benefits of cannabis are that people feel better when they use it — they feel less pain, less stress, and all the rest of it.

Obviously, their ability to drive cars, to use machinery, to do complicated calculations, it’s well-known those are impaired. For them, the personal benefit is that they feel less stressed and less pain. It’s a very suggestive thing.

The medical benefits of cannabis are largely subjective. They’re very hard to reproduce and demonstrate. The benefits are largely outweighed by the impairment of cognitive or intellectual function.

You’ll see papers, recently, suggesting that young teenage males that smoke cannabis for a long time, and heavily, can lose nearly 10 IQ points permanently.

That’s a massive concern, especially for somebody who has a borderline IQ. For them to lose so many IQ points would be a huge concern.

One of the most important [concerns], from my point of view, would be demotivation syndrome, where young smokers, particularly young males, lose all ambition in terms of their school, their sport, their friends, their community and their career. We’re talking 10% of users.

If you could produce cannabis as safely, as rigorously as any other pharmaceutical drug, I wouldn’t have any problems with people using it medicinally, but you have to have the same level of scientific rigour as you have with any other drug.

You’ll never get that.

You’ll always get ducking and diving. Regulation and education have failed miserably when it comes to tobacco and alcohol, and many other agents that are regulated, so I’m sceptical.

Chris Luke is a consultant in emergency medicine at Cork University Hospital

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