Plan to make prescription pills illegal for drug users ‘retrograde’

Minister for Health says if gardaí ask for measure to deal with a problem ‘I feel obliged to act’.

Plans to make possession of prescription medication by drug-users illegal will be counter-productive to assisting the community of inner city Dublin, Trinity College Senator Lynn Ruane has said.

She said the changes would potentially push addicts into further harm because it would involve the forced removal of the drug without replacing it with treatment for the user.

Ms Ruane asked if the legislation would extend to the medical and pharmaceutical industries “as the over-prescription of the drugs has been much more harmful than the illegal street-dealing”.

Minister for Health Simon Harris will bring legislation to the Seanad on Thursday to amend the Misuse of Drugs Acts to make having controlled medicines an offence so gardaí can “disrupt the activities of dealers and protect local communities”.

Comments

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.