Yesterday NUI Galway students were given the opportunity to vote on a motion calling on their Student Union to support the legalisation of the cultivation, sale and possession of cannabis.

The proposal was put forward by NUIG Students For Sensible Drug Policy. You can read my previous blog post for more background on the referendum

The proposal students voted on read as follows:

Do you agree with the following proposition: ‘That NUI Galway Student’s Union actively supports the legalisation and regulation of the cultivation, sale and possession of cannabis for adults age 18 and over.’

Today the result was announced following the counting of the votes and it has emerged that 68% have supported the motion.

From a total vote of 2,634 there were 1,796 votes in favour of the motion and 838 votes against it.

This is a great victory for NUIG SSDP and other activists with around two-thirds of students supporting the motion. The university is now the first to give their Student Union such a mandate, and more could follow.

Members of other Student Unions in Ireland were asked for their views on the referendum which you can read here

As suggested in my previous blog post the referendum would be useful for getting some media coverage on the debate, however I didn’t imagine the level of coverage it would achieve.

Coverage wasn’t just limited to local media like the Connacht Tribute which ran an article on the vote or to college media like Campus.ie which ran the following article

In the past week national media outlets like UTV Ireland covered the referendum before the vote, both on their website and on the 10pm news. UTV Ireland also posted about the result of the referendum

Meanwhile the Irish Times ran two articles reporting on the referendum ahead of the vote and another following the result of the vote

Other outlets such as Joe.ie published a story on the vote, as did TheJournal.ie which published the following article



TheJournal.ie also ran a story and a poll on legalising cannabis following the result

Members of SSDP Ireland also did a number of radio interviews ahead of the vote, some of which can be heard here

All this media coverage and exposure is great both for SSDP Ireland and the cannabis legalisation debate as a whole. Hopefully as other campuses perhaps follow suit we will see continued coverage.

Well done to all the campaigners involved.

Check out Students For Sensible Drug Policy Ireland to get involved with one of its chapters nationwide.