Committee recommends decriminalising drugs possession for personal use

By Gráinne Ní Aodha, Press Association

The full decriminalisation of drugs possession for personal use has been recommended by a cross-party parliamentary committee.

It follows on from the recommendations from the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use in 2024, which said that drugs possession for personal use should be met with a health-led rather than a criminal justice response.

The Joint Committee on Drugs Use made 161 recommendations in its report published on Wednesday, split up under headings including inter-generational trauma; addiction, sports and wellbeing; neurodiversity; and emerging trends.

Under the heading of “legal and policy issues”, the report said: “The committee recommends the repeal of section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 in order to fully decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use.

“The committee also supports legislative reforms to strengthen and extend the spent convictions regime, to reduce the long-term impacts of criminal records on rehabilitation, recovery, social inclusion and access to employment.”

The committee’s chair, Social Democrat TD Gary Gannon, said the group was guided by the Citizens’ Assembly, which he called “the most comprehensive examination of drug use” in Ireland’s history.

He said the exact quantities of drugs in personal possession that should be decriminalised should be decided by the legislative process and gardaí.

The committee said that while the decriminalisation for personal possession is not likely to result in an increase in consumption, “a small sample of jurisdictions where decriminalisation has been implemented have reported an increase in drug consumption in public areas”.

“Therefore, the committee recommends that local authorities are required to discourage and reduce consumption in public areas, including through the use of local authority by-laws, similar to those governing the consumption of alcohol in public,” it said.

Gannon said in his foreword to the report that the decision to stop making the personal possession of drugs a criminal matter and to move it to a health-led approach was “not a marginal adjustment”.

“It is a recognition that criminalising people for their own drug use has not reduced harm, and that a different approach is both possible and overdue,” it said.

The deputy chair of the committee, Fianna Fáil senator Mary Fitzpatrick, said: “Over the past 20 years, the nature of drug use in Ireland has changed completely.

“Where once it was often associated with heroin use in disadvantaged and marginalised communities, today we are dealing with widespread poly-substance use.

“Cocaine, cannabis, prescription drugs and new substances are now present in every county – in villages, towns and cities alike.

“Addiction is no longer something that can be seen as affecting ‘other communities’. It is present across Irish society.”

She said the committee heard evidence that “a largely criminal justice-focused approach has not worked well enough”.

She added: “It has not reduced harm, it has not supported people early enough, and in some cases, it has added to stigma and exclusion.

“That is why this report is clear in its direction: Ireland must move to a health-led approach.”

The Irish Coalition for Drug Reform welcomed the publication today of the report, in particular the repeal of Section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977.

“The report is clear: Ireland must move away from criminalising people for possession of drugs for personal use and towards a health centred model of care.”