I thank the Chair and members for the invitation. My colleague Eddie D'Arcy and I are here today on behalf of Youth Workers Against Prohibition. We came together in 2021 as a group of independent, experienced youth workers to raise our concerns about the policy of drug prohibition in Ireland. At present, youth workers are supporting over 380,000 young people in communities across the country. We see at first hand on a daily basis the untold damage that criminalising young people has on their life opportunities. We see the devastation that unregulated drugs are inflicting on communities as young people have no idea of the content, purity or consequences of what they are taking. Prohibition drives our young people who use drugs underground, isolates them and places them in danger. We believe that the policy of prohibition-criminalisation has failed and is not the way forward.
We fully support decriminalisation but we feel it does not go far enough to tackle the issue we see. Decriminalisation of all drug possession and cultivation for personal use is an important first step but it will still leave the supply of drugs in the control of criminal gangs and young people will still be at risk using unknown, unregulated substances. The time has come to regulate all drugs - not just caffeine, alcohol and tobacco - and to create a model that keeps our young people in Ireland safe. A model that protects people who use banned drugs from the present vagaries and removes the stigma for those who are affected by addiction, treating them instead with compassion and care, will keep our children and communities safer.
Under the current policy of prohibition, the drugs market is run by criminal gangs that operate through fear, intimidation and the exploitation of youth. Under prohibition, there is, and always will be, a thriving unregulated drug market and the longer we continue to hold on to the illusion of beating it, the longer we will have to see young people, families and communities suffer the consequences. Despite the record levels of seizures of drugs and drug money, there is no shortage of availability on the streets. Indeed, evidence indicates that tougher enforcement measures that disrupt the market by removing suppliers actually result in increased community tensions and violence as new suppliers take over. Drugs are so prevalent that young people find them easier to obtain than alcohol or cigarettes.
While the use of banned drugs is spread fairly evenly across all sections of society, in contrast drug law enforcement targets poor and disadvantaged users. Indeed, our prisons are full of young people from poor and disadvantaged communities caught up in the illegal drug trade. Their drug convictions condemn them to a lifetime of difficulty gaining employment, housing, community participation, insurance, relationships and travel. A total of 70% of the State's prison population, which currently stands at over 3,700 people, report having addiction issues. The figure for women is 85%. Our failed drugs policies impose devastation on disadvantaged communities and represent a bad investment for society as a whole. It costs in the region of €75,000 to imprison an adult for one year, while the cost for juveniles is €340,000. This is money that would be more effectively invested in community programmes to produce better outcomes for young people and society as a whole.
Defeating the drug gangs and ending their regimes of fear will only happen if we remove the lucrative drug market they thrive on by legally regulating all drugs. Contrary to popular belief, regulation does not introduce drugs to young people - those drugs are already just as available as alcohol and tobacco - and neither decriminalisation nor regulation result in increased drug use among young people. What drug reform does mean is that young people are not criminalised, are less likely to overdose, are less likely to be poisoned by contaminants and are more likely to seek help if they need it. Drug gangs do not ask for identification, do not practice quality control and do not necessarily care what happens to the people they have sold to.
Our primary motivation as youth workers is keeping young people safe and encouraging their development. Regulation will also help remove the shame and stigma that has for so long been associated with addiction and problematic drug use in this country. Among so many young people, addiction is a presenting problem but the real underlying issues that need to be addressed often precede drug use.
These can include deep-seated trauma such as physical and sexual abuse, exclusion from school, being looked after by the State, incarceration, poverty, neglect, disadvantage and isolation, self-harm and mental ill health, unmet learning difficulties and blocked futures. Prohibition adds new problems, compounds existing issues and captures these vulnerable young people in an underground web of crime. Our communities and young people deserve better than this outdated and woefully damaging system, which criminalises them, limits their future prospects and propels them into a cycle of addiction, debt and criminality.
There is evidence internationally. Portugal, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and parts of the United States have seen the positive impact that taking an evidence-based approach to drug policy can have. In 2001, for example, Portugal decriminalised all drug possession and has since seen drug-related deaths remain below the EU average. The proportion of prisoners in Portugal sentenced for drug-related offences has fallen from 40% to 15% and rates of drug use have not increased, remaining consistently below the EU average. This has meant that the police and criminal justice system have more time and resources available to catch criminals. In 2018, Canada went one step further and legalised cannabis as opposed to simply decriminalising the drug. Canada did so for two main reasons: to reduce its availability to young people; and to destroy the illegal trade of the drug. Studies show that cannabis use among young people pre and post legalisation is down to 10% from 20% among those aged 15 to 17 years. Iceland has successfully delayed the onset of teenage drug and alcohol use by investing heavily in children and young people’s recreation during out-of-school hours. The Icelandic model did this by aligning policy, research and practice.
In line with this evidence, we believe that, after decades of harm caused by prohibition, it is vital we rethink our approach to the "war on drugs". Prohibition has been ineffective and devastatingly counterproductive for the communities where we work. Society would be best served by adopting an evidence-based drug policy that placed social care and public health, not the criminal justice system, at the heart of the governmental response. A responsibly regulated market and a health-led response to drug use will produce more informed individuals, stronger communities and healthier, happier families. This approach also recognises that drug addiction is rooted in traumatic adverse early childhood experiences and will be treated as such. Revenues from tightly controlled and regulated drug markets can be invested into community policing, public health campaigns, youth and community services, and evidence-based drug treatment. Continuing with the war on drugs is costly and ineffective and the human cost is too much to bear.
As a group, we recognise that this is a significant and drastic policy change, but after 50 years of devastating harm caused by prohibition, a move to evidence-based drug policies is long overdue. This move would help Ireland to be on the right side of history as the global shift away from prohibition gathers momentum. We are calling for all drugs to be regulated so that violent criminal gangs are put out of business and people who use drugs are safer from harm. We ask the committee to give this serious consideration. Communities and families cannot continue to be subjected to fear, crime and violence under the existing paradigm of prohibition. We need effective intervention and we need it now.