First, the plus side.
It starts with the title. It’s not even called the National Drugs Strategy 2017-2025, like its predecessors.
It’s now called “Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery — a health-led response to drug and alcohol use in Ireland 2017-2025”.
OK, it’s a mouthful. But it does capture the shift in focus: from the criminal justice approach to a health one.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Health Minister Simon Harris and Drugs Strategy Minister Catherine Byrne all emphasised how the health and social needs of the addict — as well as those of families and communities — went to the core of the strategy.
Part of this is the establishment of a high-level group to examine the issue of decriminalisation of the possession of drugs. This would have been unimaginable even five years ago. It’s part of a shift that has seen the introduction of legislation for supervised injecting centres — also part of this strategy.
These moves are the result of trends here and abroad. Here, due to the work of former drugs strategy minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, the previous Oireachtas justice committee and the decriminalisation campaign by Citywide, representing community drug projects, and the National Family Support Network.
There are other positives in the report: Not least the formal inclusion of families and users in the national drug structures.
Source: Cormac O'Keeffe, 18/07/17
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