CANNABIS USERS SHOULD NOT GO TO PRISON, SAYS MINISTER

CANNABIS users should not be sent to prison, the Minister of State in
charge of the National Drugs Strategy Eoin Ryan believes.

The Minister is to review a controversial report by Britain’s Police
Foundation which recommends the decriminalisation of cannabis and the
reclassification of ecstasy from a class A to a class B drug.

While the Government is not considering decriminalising cannabis, he
believes cannabis users should not be sent to prison.

“I think it would be very regrettable if somebody ended up in prison
for smoking cannabis. I think it would not be good for that person.
Certainly we would not be helping that person’s future by putting them
in prison,” he said.

He stressed that he was referring to personal use only and not the
possession of large quantities of the drug.

Mr Ryan said the chances of being sentenced to jail for smoking a
joint in this State are slight. “The numbers are very few. It’s
minuscule...practically nobody.”

Mr Ryan caused a stir days after his appointment when he acknowledged
that he had smoked cannabis in his past.

However, he said it was wrong to suggest that the State was wasting
resources on fighting the supply of soft drugs like cannabis.

“A lot of resources are not going into prosecutions for cannabis. Most
of the resources are going into the fight against the hard drugs like
heroin.”

Mr Ryan said he had serious reservations about legalising cannabis
because of what he said was the failure of the Dutch experience and
because of the message it would send out.

“It’s sending out to young people the message that it is okay. And
cannabis smoking among disadvantaged young people at school is
definitely causing problems. And that has been proven. It further
hinders their educational development.

“For us to put out a message that it’s safe to do it would be wrong.
It has not been proven that it is safe to do it. There are more
reports coming forward that it can do more damage than people realise.”

Reacting to the recommendation by the British Police Foundation that
ecstasy be reclassified as a softer drug, he said sending out the
message that it’s okay to take ecstasy is irresponsible.

“People die from ecstasy. People talk about genetically modified food
and say that not enough research has gone into them. But we don’t know
anything about the drug. Certainly there’s a lot of question marks
about the long term affects it may have on users.”