Sinn Fein initiates reform in Ireland

Sinn Féin, Ireland’s fastest growing political party, has taken several steps to encourage a more effective, evidence-based approach to tackling the problems of drug addiction and drug-related crime.

In its most recent drug policy document, Sinn Féin demonstrates a welcome and pragmatic understanding of the factors influencing drug abuse, stating:

“Harmful drug use has a complex relationship with class, inequality and poverty. Unless poverty and inequality are tackled, the scourge of drugs will continue.”

The party’s reasoned stance on drug use continues with the call for a drug policy which is founded on facts rather than ideology:

“The administration of criminal justice as it interacts with drug-related crime should be reviewed, reformed and tailored to more effectively address and reduce systemic crime, economic compulsive crime and psychopharmacological crime. A broad societal debate considering every possible approach and all relevant evidence from other jurisdictions including those that have experimented with decriminalization and/or legalization is warranted to this end.

“New approaches must be informed by the most credible emerging evidence and international best practice.”

Sinn Féin has further indicated its willingness to embrace drug policy reform with the introduction of a bill to regulate the sale of ‘legal highs’. Presented to the Irish Parliament in April this year, the bill proposes the establishment of a Non-Medicinal Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority, whose main functions would be:

• To formulate and publish rules for the issuing of licenses to those involved in the retail, distribution, import and production of non-medicinal psychoactive substances
• To establish and maintain a publicly available register of those licensed to engage in the sale, importation, distribution and production of non-medicinal psychoactive substances
• To conduct or otherwise instigate inspections of licensees’ premises, products and any property connected to the sale, distribution, importation and production of non-medicinal psychoactive substances

In the explanatory memorandum to the bill, the Sinn Féin spokesperson for Justice, Social Welfare and International Affairs, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, highlighted the futility of adopting a purely prohibitive stance on the trade of these substances via ‘head shops’:

“The current system of identifying and banning substances has proven ineffective in dealing with these dangerous substances. Through cynical labelling and the masking of active ingredients the head shops have managed to establish an increasingly lucrative industry to the detriment of public health and well-being.”

In contrast, Ó Snodaigh rightly claims that by taking a regulatory approach to the sale and distribution of legal highs, the new bill will help to “protect public health and reduce the risk of harm from such products and substances”.

Ó Snodaigh further highlighted his party’s commitment to establishing a more effective drug policy by putting a parliamentary question to the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin. After being made aware of the proposal by Transform, Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for his views on carrying out a transnational impact assessment of drug policy, a measure initially advocated in a briefing paper by the International Drug Policy Consortium.

Martin’s response to the question was typically evasive and dismissive, stating that he was “not aware” that the IDPC’s proposals for an impact assessment of drug policy had been raised in any relevant international forum.

As Transform is proposing, impact assessments of drug policy are a vital step in establishing a fairer and more successful solution to the challenges of problematic drug use and the illegal drug trade. Without such non-partisan evaluations of drug policy, drug war ideology, knee jerk responses to media panics and populist law and order posturing will continue to underpin governmental approaches to drugs. Bad policy can be the only result and the plight of the most vulnerable members of society will continue to worsen.

TV documentary: Prime Time Investigates: War Without End

An extraordinary documentary marking a new level in broadcast journalism critiquing the international war on drugs was shown on Irish TV last night (3 June 2008).

Filmed in Colombia, Ireland, England, the US, The Netherlands, Switzerland and many more, it includes a veritable who’s who of drug policy experts on all sides of the debate (Including Transform's Danny Kushlick).

It is absolutely unequivocal in demonstrating the futility and massive costs of fighting the war on drugs, as well as suggesting legal regulation as a viable alternative. A must see for anyone interested in the debate.

The entire program can be viewed online here

Irish Poll: 44% agree that criminalising drug use causes more problems than it solves

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The results of a new opinion poll commissioned by the Irish Penal RTrust are released today. Covering a range of key issues in the law and order debate as the Irish general election approaches, there are some obvious lessons for UK policy makers: the public are not nearly as obsessed with 'get tough' policies and punitive approaches to crime as the tabloid media would have them believe. This is the IPRT press release:

NEW POLL: Majority of voters prefer non-custodial programmes over prison for most offenders — TNS/MRBI poll commissioned by the Penal Reform Trust shows main political parties out of step with voters on how to deal with most crime

A new poll released today shows that a majority of voters across all political parties would prefer to see most offenders each year diverted away from prison and into non-custodial programmes that address the root causes of their offending and/or supervise them in the community.

The TNS/MRBI poll commissioned by the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults during January 2007 in order to gauge public opinion on a range of issues related to the prison system.

The poll reveals that when given a choice of how to deal with non-violent offenders – who make up over 80% of committals to prisons in Ireland each year – respondents preferred to divert them away from prison and into drug treatment programmes, mental health programmes or sentence them to community service. Prison sentences were a less preferred option, and
received similar support as other non-custodial options such as reparation to victims and community supervision by the Probation Service.

The poll also reveals that by wide margins, voters of all political parties question the use of prisons as the best way to deal with crime. The poll found that:

91% of respondents believe that offenders with mental illness should be treated in a mental health facility instead of being sent to prison.

81% believe that offenders with a drug addiction should be placed in drug recovery programmes instead of serving a prison sentence.

74% are in favour of using alternatives to prison when dealing with young offenders.

66% of respondents believe that people come out of prison worse than they go in .

54% disagree with the statement that ‘increasing prison numbers will reduce crime’.

44% agree that criminalising drug use causes more problems than it prevents. Only 28% disagreed.

“This research shows clearly that the Irish electorate has a much more sophisticated understanding of crime and punishment issues than they are given credit for by the main political parties or by much of the media,”

said IPRT Executive Director Rick Lines. “It also shows that public concern about crime in no way translates into widespread demand for the types of knee-jerk ‘get tough’ policies being peddled by the Government and main Opposition parties in the run up to the election.”

“In fact just the opposite is the case. By wide margins, voters of all political persuasions see prison as a failed response to dealing with most crime, do not prioritise building additional prison spaces as a strategy to tackle crime and, when given a choice, would prefer to see non-violent offenders, who constitute the vast majority of committals each year, diverted out of prisons altogether and into non-custodial programmes and supervision that engage the root causes of the offending or make reparations to victims,” he said.

Said Mr. Lines, “Politicians often claim that their calls for ever harsher penalties and ever bigger prisons are based upon public demand for such measures. This research exposes the fallacy of that position. In fact, the political parties are not responding to either public demand, orindeed the demands of their own voters, in the current rush to incarcerate.”

“A majority of voters are not only supportive of expanded non-custodial and treatment options for dealing with crime, they actually prefer them as a strategy to deal with most people committed to prison each year. It remains to be seen whether the political parties will have the courage to catch up to the electorate in this regard.”

See www.iprt.ie for detailed poll results and contacts


Summary of IPRT Poll Results

Preferred Initiatives to Tackle Crime

When asked which initiative they would most like to see implemented tota ckle crime given a budget of €10 million, approaching 4 in 10 (37%) adults would opt for additional Gardaí. This was followed at some remove by youth workers to work with children (17%) and additional drug treatment places (15%). Only 5% chose building additional prison places as their preferred response to tackling crime.

Preferred Measures For Non-Violent Offenders

The preferred options for non-violent offenders are drug treatment for offenders with drug problems (41%), community service (39%) and mental health treatment for offenders with mental health problems (34%).

Opinions Of The Penal System

Those who participated in the research agreed almost universally that mentally ill offenders should be treated in a mental health facility instead of being sent to prison (91%). Whilst 8 in 10 agreed that offenders with a drug addiction should be placed in drug recovery programmes instead of serving a prison sentence (81%).

Most respondents agreed that more people come out of prison worse than they go in (66%).

The majority (54%) disagreed with the statement ‘increasing prison numbers will reduce crime’.

Just over 4 in 10 (44%) agreed that criminalising drug use causes more problems than it prevents, while 28% disagreed. Interestingly, the question of whether or not criminalising drug use causes more problems than it prevents attracted the highest level of uncertainty with 19%
answering ‘neither agree nor disagree’ and a further 9% answering ‘don’t know’.

Youth Offenders

Three quarters (74%) of those interviewed were in favour of using alternatives to prison when dealing with young offenders.

Perceived Proportion Of Violent Offenders Committed To Prison

There is widespread misconception amongst the public regarding the proportion of prisoners who served a sentence for a violent offence in 2005. Figures from the Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2005 show that 15% of prisoners were convicted of a Group 1 or Group 2 offence.

However, the research findings show 69% of respondents overestimated the proportion of prisoners sentenced for violent offences, compared to just 4% who underestimated the proportion.

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"Drugs are illegal, and that's the right way to have them."

Irish boadcasting legend Gay Byrne, long time presenter of the late late show, has become one of a growing number of Irish public figures questioining the war on drugs.

According to this Irish Times report he told an Irish radio station he was coming round to the view that illegal drugs should be legalised because attempts to deal with the problem through law enforcement had "demonstrably failed". His position gained support from Labour Councillor Aodhan O Riordain, deputy majyor of Dublin who agreed that a new approach to drugs was needed, commenting that;

"Drugs are a continuing cancer which have a devastating effect on communities throughout my electoral area of the North Inner City, throughout Dublin and indeed throughout the country.

"However it is becoming clear to me that we as a society need to start a new debate on the problem as we are clearly losing the war on drugs,"

This eminently reasonable position was met by Noel Ahern, the minister of state responsible for drug strategy with the following intellectual tour-de-force:

"Drugs are illegal, and that's the right way to have them. Any talk about liberalising drugs is irresponsible."

Ahern seems to have overlooked the fact that many drugs aren’t illegal, including some old Irish favorites including alcohol and tobacco. There are ofcourse a range of regulatory models that exist for the production and supply of recreationally and medically used drugs.

Also we can steer clear of talk of 'liberalising' and still have a very useful debate about the best way to tackle problems arising from drug use and misuse. We can talk about how best to control drug markets through legal regulation, how to remove power from the drug dealers and gangsters, invest in public health and improve the wellbeing of society.

In short - take a rational and scienctific look at the evidence and try and come up with a better policy - nothing irresponsible about that - infact its what drug ministers should be doing. Just saying: 'drugs are illegal and thats the right way to have them' hardly constitutes a devastating point by point rebuttal of the drug war's many critics.

For more information on control through regulation please read our document ‘After the War on Drugs: Options for Control’