{"id":330793,"date":"2026-03-05T20:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/330793\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T20:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T20:10:08","slug":"ireland-should-have-wide-range-of-options-on-drug-possession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/330793\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ireland should have wide range of options on drug possession’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s better for countries to have a \u201cwide range of options\u201d in responding to drug possession than just a single approach, an EU drug agency expert has said.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Drugs Use, Brendan Hughes said that a one-size-fits-all approach for people caught in possession of drugs for personal use doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

A principal scientist for drug legislation at the EU Drugs Agency (EUDA), Mr Hughes said the \u201cethos\u201d of a desired system would be to \u201cretain\u201d people in the health and treatment system rather than have the threat of punishment hanging over them.<\/p>\n

He said this ethos needs to be combined with sufficient capacity in the system and enough resources.<\/p>\n

Drug diversion scheme\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following a protracted delay, garda\u00ed and the HSE are about to start a limited diversion scheme<\/a> \u2014 from the criminal justice to the health system \u2014 for people caught with drugs for personal use.<\/p>\n

The Oireachtas drugs committee is also examining more sweeping reforms recommended by the Citizens\u2019 Assembly on Drugs Use<\/a>, which reported in January 2024.<\/p>\n

Mr Hughes told the committee: \u201cI have been an analyst of national drug legislation around the EU and broader now for 25 years. I do not have all the answers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But he said there was a \u201cbroad trend\u201d to reduce the size of maximum punishments and\/or to \u201cincrease options\u201d, including access to treatment and counselling.<\/p>\n

Other European countries’ policies\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said, in Croatia, the offender now receives a fine to avoid receiving a criminal record, while in Austria the courts can send the offender directly to the health service. He said, in Norway, police are now authorised to refer individuals to a municipal advisory unit, outside criminal proceedings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said there were exceptions: France reduced the size of the likely punishment but increased the speed and certainty of it by introducing spot fines rather than a court trial; Spain doubled the size of the fine to \u20ac600 for a first offence, and in Denmark, they toughened the response from a warning to a fine.<\/p>\n

Mr Hughes said: \u201cYou need a wide range of options… a wide variety of choices rather than one.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Portugal’s drugs dissuasion commissions<\/p>\n

He cited Portugal, where \u2018dissuasion commissions\u2019 \u2014 official bodies that take referrals of people caught with drugs by police \u2014 have a philosophy of \u201cretaining\u201d people in the health system rather than waiting for someone to fail and punish them.<\/p>\n

He said that if someone does not comply with directions, a dissuasion commission \u2014 comprising a social worker, psychologist, and a lawyer \u2014 tries something else.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said commissions still have \u201cpunitive options\u201d such as a warning or a financial or non-financial penalty, such as banning someone from an area where drugs are sold.<\/p>\n

University of Porto professor of psychology Marta Pinto said that, although Portuguese law \u201callows for punishment\u201d, dissuasion commissions persist in finding a tailored health intervention for each person.<\/p>\n

She said some people might fail several times before they succeed and that the commissions \u201cdo not give up\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Pinto said that, in recent years, police have complained about changes to the law which they say make it more difficult for them to tackle drug dealing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s better for countries to have a \u201cwide range of options\u201d in responding to drug possession than just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27510,54,1115,424,7782,103,2120,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-330793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-drugs-crisis","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-drugs","tag-gardai","tag-health","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}