Labour’s junior health minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin’
Newly appointed junior health minister Aodhan Ó Ríordáin’s first task?
To ‘consider’ decriminalising the ‘erb.
Not leglisalising it mind.
A stoner speaks:
Sadly not the same thing by a long chalk, compadré, if you’ve ever been in Portugal. The purchaser is untroubled but the seller (with his pitiful few nodges) is harrassed beyond endurance, The supply dries up, the price goes through the roof, the quality diminishes and anarchy ensues….
Bummer.
*giggle*
State to examine possibility of decriminalising cannabis (Irish Times)
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Baby steps. This is definitely progress to see if we can have a conversation about weed that doesn’t immediately jump to “Junkies EVERYWHERE, Joe!”.
+1.
I’ll get the choc digestives :D
I’ll get the Monster Munch, Snickers, Jelly Beans and Snax …and coffee and brownies for after
very clever move – decriminalise cannabis after they introduce a sugar tax. by 2017, the terms ‘recession’ and ‘austerity’ will be long forgotten, alongside where you put your keys and your ma’s birthday.
CHOCOLATE. MILK.
Um.. Has the Government scrapped its equality minister in the midst of the marriage equality referendum campaign?
I’ve been saying this for years… there’s actually no good reason to legalise it but then again nobody should be criminalised for smokin’ a spliff. I imagine it would still be a minor crime but only incur something akin to a parking ticket… or less.
There’s an excellent reason to legalise it, which is that there’s no legitimate reason for it to be illegal in the first place. Seems to be a very Irish attitude, that things can and should be legislated for on the basis of someone’s not liking it.
But this is stupid the whole point of legalising it is that we will no longer be filling our prisons with people who deal a bit of weed, we could tax the bejayzus out of it like they are doing in colorado and making a fortune off it and we would not be wasting garda and customs time and resources chasing a bit of weed so they could then concentrate on real criminals. Decriminalisation is nothing but a small band aid on a gapping artery wound.
You’re aware that drug smugglers are ‘real criminals’ right?
The process to legalisation would require a proper supply chain to displace the smugglers.
Also I believe there are people skilled in hydroponics that could grow the stuff anywhere. EU law would probably prevent the government from requiring people to buy only Irish weed, but maybe buying local could work.
It was grown here before to make rope and sails. It could easily be grown here again.
Oh yeah, I’d be sailing alright… four sheets to the wind man !
Obviously it would be grown for different reason now but doesn’t mean we could use the waste crop to restart a level of textile manufacturing, the would be some high, wealthy farmers.
A major reason for keeping weed and other harmless substances illegal is because locking people up is big business. Major lobbying going on in the states by prison officer unions and private prisons. Criminalising drugs is big business and politicians don’t like laying off law cops and prison officers
That’s America not here America has a privatised prison system. We on the other hand have an understaffed system with ageing buildings not fit for purpose.
But wouldn’t the number of states legalising it not show there is movement from the US to recognise that was the wrong approach and things are changing… remains to be seen I guess
“the whole point of legalising it is that we will no longer be filling our prisons with people who deal a bit of weed”
Really? I mean really really? Are you stoned now?
See Bacchus if we stop filling our prisons with petty drug criminals it would put less pressure on a system that is already overwhelmed and we would probably see violent offenders staying for their entire custodial sentences, instead of murderers out in 5 years and rapists out in 2.
Those who oppose its legalisation the most are the criminal gangs who profit from a simple dried herb whose “street value” here is one of the highest in the world. Per gram it’s about 50% the price of gold. If they decriminalise it, they should allow adults to grow a small number of plants yourself or have cooperatives like they do in Belgium or Spain. Cannabis culture and how people use it / abuse it will never improve in Ireland as long as the entire industry is controlled by skangers.
One thing that might – should – come out of decriminalisation is State quality control of drugs. At the moment people who buy drugs have no idea what they’ve been cut with – toilet cleaner, shite, earth, oregano, baking powder (depending on the thing they’re buying. People can be really badly damaged either by being poisoned by this crap, or by getting an extremely variable amount of the bit of a drug that makes you stoned.
Is there already a special section in the Dept of Health that issues authorisation
to grow cannabis below a certain THC level, imagime the export opportunites
if THC level was upped, it would have to be restricted in the Dail, as if they
got stoned instead of pissed like the night they passed the Water Services
Bill, they might declare war.
It’s the old “we better do what they do” legislative attitude. Hemp industry suppressed by cotton industry, and latterly by tobacco industry. Wait, what was I saying?….man, my hands are huge……
Decriminalize the way forward, take time then setting up a proper structure for legalization.
As a daily medical user the biggest problem is dosage – knowing how strong the stuff is, what strain it is, etc is another pain that is unnecessary.
No criminal charges for possession up to 25 g say.
No criminal charges for personal cultivation of up to 5 plants.
Leave the statute book where it is for selling, distribution etc.
It’s killing no one, it’s helping some. It’s become a moral question.