Everyone knows that there is a massive drugs problem in Ireland. However, there are sharp differences of opinion when it comes to defining the nature of the problem – and what might be done to counteract it.

The extreme hardline view, which is to a large extent espoused by the Department of Justice and the current Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue, is that all drugs covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act are effectively the same, and that they should be subject to severe prohibitionist policies – and, in that light, that anyone who transgresses in relation to any of these drugs should be met with the full rigour of the law, including the prospect of having a criminal record and spending some time behind bars.

This is the approach that has been pursued in Ireland for the last 30 years or thereabouts, at enormous cost, and with results that can only be described as spectacularly unsuccessful. There are about 15,000 heroin addicts in Ireland, possibly more. This number has not in the remotest degree been diminished by the pursuit of the so-called War On Drugs here. And there is no prospect whatsoever of it being reduced.

Rather, the effect of the fact that heroin is illegal and therefore supplied on the black market by ruthless gangsters, is that addicts are automatically sucked into a criminal netherworld. Not only this: the price of heroin is artificially high, and it costs a fortune to feed a serious habit. To achieve this, addicts need to rob and steal – which they do, with more guile and gusto than you’d think anyone who is dependent on heroin could possibly manage. Thus, we can conclude that, if heroin (not methadone, which is a poor substitute) was available to addicts on prescription or otherwise legally, the crime rate would be reduced and reduced substantially.

Is there a cannabis problem in Ireland? The Department of Justice, the Minister for Justice and the Gardai think that there is. So what then could the nature of this problem be? It is quite clear that no one dies from using cannabis. It is also quite clear that it is not a seriously addictive drug – less so than cigarettes or alcohol, both of which are legal. Loads of people use it. And yet there isn’t a single serious negative consequence, either socially or health-wise, that any authority can point to with conviction, that arises from this widespread use.

So there is really nothing that we can call a cannabis problem that relates directly to the drug itself. When you boil it all down, there is only one plank on which the argument for the prohibition of cannabis, and the vast expenditure on attempting (unsuccessfully) to police its use, rests – and that is the notion that it is a so-called ‘gateway drug’.

But is it? This question is in fact of central importance in relation to our whole understanding of, and approach to, the drugs issue. Which is why the distinction made in an interview, in the last issue of hotpress, by Minister Eoin Ryan, who has responsibility for the development of a national policy on drugs, is such an important one. “Cannabis,” he declared, “is not a gateway drug.” He is right, of course.

Hundreds of thousands of people have used and enjoyed cannabis in Ireland – and they have never gone near heroin. Furthermore, there is a proportion of heroin users who have never smoked cannabis. And finally, the strongest link between heroin and cannabis – and therefore the only sense in which there is a ‘gateway’ involved – arises from the fact that both are illegal drugs. They are supplied by the same people. And when, for example, cannabis is in short supply, well, then heroin can be offered as an alternative. In other words, any gateway aspect which may exist could be eliminated immediately by the legalisation of either drug – or preferably both.

Eoin Ryan is a decent individual. In his heart, I suspect that he really knows the score. And in his Hot Press interview, you could say that he tentatively opened the door to a serious discussion of the whole issue. But he will need to go further than this, and to do it quickly, in spite of the potentially hostile reaction of the Minister for Justice, whose crude and blinkered approach is a major stumbling block to progress.

In the course of the interview, Ryan had some things to say about alcohol. The fact of the matter is that this is the drug which is most widely abused in this culture, and with consequences that are often horrific. But the tenor of the Minister’s views was still locked in the prohibitionist mode. He agreed that if someone invented alcohol today that it would be banned – missing the point that, if it was banned, this would automatically create a black market for it, and that the mad downward spiral that actually did take place in the United States during Prohibition would inevitably ensue.

Similarly, he expressed reservations about drink companies becoming involved in sponsorship of music and sporting events – as if the correct way to develop a culture in which alcohol is not abused is by applying restrictions of one kind or another. The fact is that there is a very strong link between music and alcohol – the vast majority of music, of all kinds, in Ireland takes place in licensed premises of one kind or another. The idea that you can negate this by attempting to discourage drinks companies from sponsoring music or sports events really is at best naive and at worst insidious.

Hotpress has been involved in a variety of pioneering music sponsorships – our annual awards were first sponsored by Stag back in the early eighties, and we have been running the hugely successful Bacardi hotpress band competition for a number of years. These, and other events like them, have made a significant contribution to the growth and development of a vibrant and successful music culture here. I make no bones about the fact that we have a vested interest in them, commercially and – in certain cases – emotionally. But it is not for that reason that I feel that the Minister is barking up the wrong tree by indulging in the same restrictive, prohibitionist thinking that has bedevilled the whole approach to drugs policy here, and internationally, over the years.

This kind of thinking is woolly and negative when what is required is a positive and pro-active approach which is designed to harness the resources of the State to create a far greater awareness of the need to treat alcohol – and indeed drugs in general – with care. The fact is that the State does have enormous resources at its disposal. But these need to be used smartly and well, in order to effectively raise the level of awareness about health issues; about the importance of diet; about the benefits of sport; about the possibility of addiction; and about the dangers of alcohol abuse and drunkenness. That is where the emphasis should lie, rather than messing around in an ill-informed and philosophically suspect way with aspects of our individual and collective freedom.

Who is going to be the first Minister or policy-maker to fashion a public health and awareness campaign that has the positive effect that is desirable in relation to the use and abuse of drugs of all kinds in Ireland? And who is going to be the first Minister to grasp the nettle, and take this whole aspect of our lives out of the criminal arena and into one that is guided by principles of ordinary decency and mutual respect?

In the end, it does come down to individuals, who will choose to do what they like with their bodies – and what they put into them – and their health and their lives, and who must take resopnsibility for the choices that they make. But government can create the climate in which less people do the wrong thing, or take risks that rebound badly on them and on others. Not, I believe, by being restrictive or prohibitionist or by attempting to deny the impulse to celebrate or to chase the transcendental – but by engaging in the truly vital project of education and equalisation and awareness-raising, which is at the heart of nourishing the self-esteem which is essential to establishing a balanced and positive relationship with the world.

We will never achieve utopia – but we could get a hell of a lot closer to it than we are. That’s the prize. And end to prohibitionism would, I believe, be a huge first step in the right direction.