Minister says people caught with minor amounts of drugs shouldn't go through the criminal justice system

Drugs Minister Hildegarde Naughton has said that people caught with small amounts of drugs should not be prosecuted by the criminal justice system.

The Fine Gael Minister also said that she feels it’s time for a more health-focused approach, which could help addicts free themselves of the relentless cycle the criminal justice system.

“What we don’t want is a situation where somebody ends up in the criminal justice system, and that maybe for just a small amount of drug possession; and that just sets their life on a trajectory that could have gone another way,” she told the Irish Independent.

“Every case is going to be different. Where somebody commits a serious crime, that needs to be dealt with.”

She suggested the expansion of medicinal cannabis to treat more illnesses, as well as arming Gardaí with overdose-preventing medicines like Naloxone.

The proposed 'health-led approach' to drugs is scarily similar to the old fashioned criminal justice approach:

✅Gardaí keep stop and search powers
✅Drugs are still illegal
✅Drug use is considered a problem in every case

This is not real change, it's mostly spin.

— Crainn (@r_crainn) January 14, 2024

“Over 2,000 people now across homeless services and addiction services have been trained in the use of Naloxone and this can essentially reverse the effects of an overdose and time for an ambulance to come," said Naughton.

Last November, Dublin City witnessed an “unprecedented” amount of drug overdoses due to the presence of Nitazenes - a synthetic opioid deemed stronger than heroin - in illicit substances.

“They don’t feel heard, this huge stigma around this, this vicious cycle of someone who’s in addiction ending up in the criminal justice system,” continued the Drugs Minister.

“It’s not the criminal justice system they need. They need a health intervention, someone who’s going to help them detox, go into recovery and put in place all the supports they need.”

“There’s drugs in every single village town across this country. It doesn’t matter what background you’re from. There’s drugs everywhere.

Dr Nuno Capaz of the Lisbon Drug Addiction Dissuasion Commission is among those submitting this weekend to the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs. We interviewed him as part of our field trip to examine the highly successful Portuguese modelhttps://t.co/01t8jGEPBF

— Stuart Clark (@stuartclark66) June 22, 2023

Despite her calls for health-led changes to drug policy in Ireland, Minister Naughton ruled out the possibility of Amsterdam-style “coffee shops” in Ireland.

“I wouldn’t be advocating for a business in relation to that," she stated.

The Citizens' Assembly on Drugs ended in disarray last October, with some members claiming it wasn't clear what they were voting for and others complaining that they'd been presented with either incomplete or biased information.