Ciara Kelly: If we decriminalise drugs for personal use we’ll be sleepwalking into an abyss of health problems

"We’re already seeing huge mental health problems in young people from cannabis and almost every medical group globally thinks decriminalisation only makes that worse." Photo: Getty

Ciara Kelly

It seems we’re now on the road to decriminalising all drugs for personal use, as per the Citizens’ Assembly’s recommendations. Although even without those citizens, that’s been the direction of travel for some time. “Cannabis isn’t any worse than alcohol”, “The war on drugs has failed”, “A health-based approach is better than the Criminal Justice System when it comes to addiction”. This is what’s been said regularly here for years. And let’s face it, it’s also a bit uncool to be against decriminalisation, and we’re all cool and progressive nowadays sure, aren’t we?

Fully legalising cannabis was only one vote away from being recommended. And Big Cannabis which is following the playbook of Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol has done a great job on appearing utterly benign and vaguely medicinal. The CA said we should focus on prevention, education and harm reduction – “The health-based approach” – which sounds great. Except that’s not what we’re actually doing. Decriminalising or legalising drugs has one major result — increased usage. Both by those who already use — with their usage becoming heavier — but also by those who don’t currently use.