Students at NUI Galway (NUIG) have called on other universities to vote on legalising cannabis use for adults, following their referendum in favour of such a move this week.

Some 68 per cent of votes cast on the issue in NUIG supported legalisation and regulation of the of the cultivation, sale and possession of cannabis for adults age 18 and over.

A total of 1,796 votes approved of the motion, while 838 votes were against. The university has over 17,000 registered students.

Ciarán Maher, spokesman for the NUIG Students for Sensible Drug Policy Society, said the outcome meant that the legalisation would be adopted as students’ union policy.

His society, along with NUIG’s Sinn Féin cumann, the NUIG Misneach Society and the NUIG Socialist Society had united to call for a “Yes” vote, and it was endorsed by North and West MEP Luke “Ming” Flanagan at a debate on campus last week.

Garda whistleblower John Wilson, who was also invited to speak, called for a rational, mature” debate on legalising cannabis in Ireland, given its widespread use.

Regulation of cannabis without the harmful psychoactive compound linked to schizophrenia and other illnesses could ensure that thousands of people currently using the substance avoided criminal conviction, Mr Wilson said.

NUIG professor of pharmacology Prof David Finn, who is director of the Galway Neuroscience Centre, said that he wasn’t surprised by the outcome of the student vote, as it probably reflected the opinion of the majority of young people in Ireland.

However, Prof Finn said he would urge some caution around “full, uncontrolled” legalisation of cannabis, while also believing it needed to be “decriminalised”.

He said his concerns related to the amount of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, in cannabis, as “the higher the content, the riskier it is”.

THC is the chemical responsible for most of the drug’s psychological effects, and use of cannabis by young people with developing brains could lead to psychosis or other psychological disorders, he said.

“If alcohol or tobacco were discovered today, we would probably ban them, and there are schedule A drugs such as heroin which are far riskier than cannabis,”Prof Finn said.

“Regulation to ensure young people do not have access to cannabis, and regulation to ensure the safest type is used, is key,”he said.

University College Dublin’s (UCD) students’ union council voted against the legalisaton of cannabis in late January. Spokesman Brian Maher said that the UCD students’ union had “no plans” to hold a full referendum, but students were always entitled to do so and any conversation was “welcome”.

Regulations to enable authorised cannabis-based medicinal products to be legally prescribed by medical practitioners, and used by patients, were signed into law on July 11th last year.

The Health Products Regulatory Authority granted a marketing authorisation for cannabis based medicinal product Sativex to be marketed in Ireland for treatment of multiple sclerosis symptoms.

However,reimbursement under the community drugs scheme is still the subject of a Health Service Executive assessment, according to the Department of Health.