Police officers in Ireland have backed a proposal from a government minister to make possession of heroin, cocaine or other opiates for personal use no longer an arrestable offence.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who is in charge of Ireland’s drug policy, said this month that the country should move towards decriminalising possession of small quantities of certain narcotics, including all class A opiates, as part of a “radical cultural shift”.

He said attitudes to drugs must move away from shaming users, focusing instead on helping them, and that there was a difference between decriminalisation and legalisation.

The Garda Representative Association, which represents 11,500 frontline officers, has welcomed the move to decriminalise personal possession, saying it would free up police resources.



“I think anything that can deal with the curse of drugs and some innovating thinking on this is to be welcomed,” the GRA’s general secretary, PJ Stone, said, adding that Ó Ríordáin’s proposal would be seen as a brave move.

Stone said that instead of targeting drug users, Garda and state resources should be directed against the “big guys” who make millions from the misery of drug use.



The GRA has called for a more realistic solution to Ireland’s drug crisis than simply arresting users on the streets.



One GRA source said resources are so stretched in Dublin, where heroin usage is rife in certain parts of the capital, that “we don’t even have enough cells to lock up drug users who get arrested for possessing drugs”.



Ó Ríordáin’s initiative marks a major break with the state’s decades-long policy of criminalising heroin and other drug users.



He also confirmed that one of his last acts as minister before the Irish parliament dissolves and a general election is held in early spring will be to introduce safe, supervised heroin injecting rooms in Dublin.



Speaking at his constituency office in north-east Dublin, the Labour party minister said the centre could be up and running within 12 months.



Denying that his call for such a centre in the capital made him soft on drugs, Ó Ríordáin said the idea, which he first proposed in a speech to the London School of Economics earlier this month, was winning support across Ireland.

“My initial sense was that there should be one in Dublin, near the city centre in an area where they are used to treating people with addictions in the methadone clinics. At first I thought I would get a lot of objections to this idea but instead over the last few days I have been getting contacts from people across the country, from Galway, Cork and Waterford, who are all saying to me that they need the same kind of facility in their cities too.”



The sight of people injecting heroin is commonplace not only on some of Dublin’s most deprived housing estates but also parts of the city centre. One of the most notorious spots, where open drug dealing is also prevalent, is the boardwalk along the river Liffey towards O’Connell Bridge and the lower end of O’Connell Street, Dublin’s most famous thoroughfare.

Retailers, the tourist industry and city councillors have all called for alternatives to the open heroin consumption and dealing in some of Dublin’s most famous quarters.

Ó Ríordáin pointed towards the window overlooking the area he represents and said that there was open drug dealing and injecting even in the parks and playgrounds of his constituency.

“Opening up a safe injection room is not a solution but it is a recognition of failure that our society has produced people who are so vulnerable that this is the habit that they have. But either we address it as it is or we ignore it or we try to criminalise it. I don’t think we can police our way out of it. Instead I think we have to look from a humanitarian perspective about where the drug user is coming from and we will have a better chance of success that way.”



In the film about the murdered campaigning journalist Veronica Guerin, starring Cate Blanchett, the reach of Dublin’s drug gangs is exposed and public anger is laid bare over the Garda Síochána’s inability to stem the flow of heroin and other opiates pouring into the city during the 1990s.



Ó Ríordáin said he did not believe in legalising the drugs themselves but added it was time to stop arresting and prosecuting users for possession of small quantities of narcotics.

“Seventy per cent of the drug convictions in this state involve those who had drugs on them for personal use. In my view that is a waste of Garda time, that is a waste of the courts’ time and it does absolutely nothing for people who suffer from addictions.



“What does a Guard [Irish police officer] do if he or she walks down the street and sees a person injecting? Technically that person is still committing a crime and should be arrested under the law. The same would go for anyone possessing heroin who was walking into our proposed safe injecting room.”



He added: “How therefore can we encourage addicts to get off the streets, stop injecting in public places, inject in a safe environment where there are clean needles, where the risk of contracting things like hepatitis C are minimal if they fear they would be arrested at the door for possessing heroin? The only solution is decriminalise possession of drugs for personal use.”



Frontline organisations that work with Dublin’s hardcore heroin users have welcomed the first ever anti-prohibition move taken by an Irish minister regarding the drug crisis. The Merchants Quay project based on the Liffey said there are an estimated 20,000 opiate users in the city with 10,000 currently registered on the state’s methadone/heroin substitute programme. In 1996 there were 2,000 registered users signed up to the programme.



“The graph in terms of the numbers of addicts in Ireland has moved in only one direction since the 1980s and that is upwards,” said Tony Geoghegan, Merchants Quay’s CEO.

“In places like Dublin we have met with and tried to help three generations of drug users from one single family. Changing the law so that addicts are not sent to prison or given criminal convictions is an important step in really tackling this crisis. As is opening up a safe heroin injecting space in the city centre. Criminalisation has not worked.”







