Frontlines: Higher Education

The SSDP banner said it all: ‘250,000 DRUG USERS – TREATED BY GARDAI’. Given this woeful state of affairs, any attempt to start an intelligent national conversation around drugs in Ireland is to be applauded. With guest speakers including Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan TD, former UK Chief Constable Tom Lloyd, criminologist Dr Paul O’Mahony and addiction specialist Tim Bingham, the first annual SSDP Drug Policy Reform Conference held in Áras Uí Chathaill, NUIG, on April 5 was an admirable effort. Currently doing a Masters in Human Rights Law in NUIG, 23-year-old Corkonian Graham de Barra was one of the chief organisers.

HOT PRESS: What’s your involvement in the SSDP?

GRAHAM DE BARRA: I’m the founder and current auditor of the National University of Ireland Galway’s Students for Sensible Drug Policy Society which was set up in September 2013. I established the UCC branch in September 2012. We’re trying to gather a collective of students from institutions of education around Ireland and to encourage them to establish their own network within their own college so they can work with institutions like the health services, the lecturers and the researchers there.

What’s the reaction been like?

So far in NUIG the feedback from the professionals in the health unit has been really positive. They appreciate what we’re doing because they come at it from exactly the same angle. The current drug policy in NUIG is centred around harm reduction. It does not mention criminalisation anywhere on the website, it only mentions to be careful where you’re doing drugs if you’re doing them. They accept that people are doing them. So we actually have very similar values in the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Society as the health services do here.

Why did you decide to set up Students for Sensible Drug Policy?

As a teenager I realised that current drug education had failed. At 15 I was introduced into a class PSC at the time for physical, social, science education. But it was too late. Most people in my year had been doing drugs since they were in 6th class, never mind secondary school! So I saw there was definitely a value for earlier intervention than what we currently have in Ireland. I got involved in some individual learning on drug policy. When I got to college I realised there was a platform there for societies to be set up. They have LGBT societies or societies for drama, music or whatever and we just decided to do one on drug policy.

Was there a negative response?

Absolutely not. The USCG are the body who decide whether societies pass or not, I had a meeting with them. There was one or two questions and aside from that we were set up straight away. UCC was a bit more conservative as a university so we battled for maybe a couple of years to try and get it in. In 2011 when I first made an application, the student’s union and societies guild didn’t receive it too well. They used taunting names like ‘hippy’, that kind of stuff – but eventually through persistence and getting letters of reference from doctors and medical professionals around the country they couldn’t reject us in the end. I have to give credit to UCC and NUIG for the amount of resources they offered and the amount of help they gave us.

How many members do you have?

So far in the NUIG branch, we have 333. Most of those would have been in the fi rst day, societies day. Throughout the year, through events, we’ve signed up some more – in UCC about 400-450, so we have around 800 members in our two chapters. In five years if we were to get more universities, you’re looking at several thousand members.

Do you have any idea how many students are currently using illegal drugs?

We did a survey in NUI in February 2014, and we got 1,014 participants, which is actually one of the largest student drug surveys done here in Ireland. We found that 42% admitted to using illegal drugs.

Aside from this conference, what sort of activities have you been involved in?

Last December one of our members, Emmett Smith, set up a vigil outside Merlin Park Addiction Centre. Merlin Park was burnt down in September and the HSE made a decision not to rebuild it. It left loads of patients with nowhere else to go. They were moved to the psychiatric ward in the regional hospital here in Galway. But the protection of anonymity was completely violated, their programmes were totally messed up, and a lot of them said, “It’s not a psychiatric problem”. They want to talk to people – rather than just going to a doctor.

The Western Drugs Task Force, the head of Merlin Park Hospital and all the doctors here in NUIG applauded us for getting out there on the streets and mounting a campaign for something meaningful. And for including the drug-using community in what we’re trying to implement here in terms of drug policy. We’ve had talks from people like Luke Ming Flanagan, Howard Marks and Fr. Peter McVerry. Also, Anna Livia Drug Project came down and did an event here.

Do you see drug legalisation happening in Ireland anytime soon?

Legalisation? I don’t. But to reframe that: regulation for medical cannabis I definitely think will happen. With the Irish Medical Board supporting it last year, that’s just waiting for a slight amendment to legislation. That’s, literally, all it will take. But sometime even such small amendments can get held up in the Dáil for years. If you’re looking more broadly at all illegal drugs, I think decriminalisation is perhaps a realistic goal in the coming 5-10 years. But my point of view is that students and young people and people who choose to use drugs shouldn’t be criminalised – and that’s the theme of the conference. This issue shouldn’t be dealt with by the Gardaí, but by public health services. In general, the authorities should be providing more positive rights to people, rather than taking their rights away.