Ireland plans supervised injection rooms in 4 cities for drug addicts by 2016
The Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Number Two Bill is being drafted and has good chances of becoming law this year, 2015, or early 2016. But more needs to be done that just create supervised injection rooms for drug addicts to address Ireland’s drug problem.
Minister Leo Varadkar backs the bill to create the injection rooms, while Drugs Minister Aodhan O Riordan said on Tuesday that the room is not the answer to Ireland’s drug problem, reports The Independent.
However, Riordan concedes that the facility could form part of several measures as attempt to have better control over the problem, he said at the IDEAS forum of the London School of Economics. Varadkar says that if the bill becomes a law, possession of drugs within the facility would not be illegal.
The first room would be in Dublin, to be followed by Cork, Galway and Limerick, according to Irish Times.
But he adds that the Misuse of Drugs Act must also be amended because it has provisions of punishment for owners or occupiers of properly who allow possession or preparation of a controlled drug within the premises. The bill includes the decriminalisation of possession of a small amount of drugs, to include heroin, cocaine and marijuana.
Riordan also pushed for more compassion and the removal of drug addiction from the criminal justice system in the country. He states, “I am firmly of the view that there needs to be a cultural shift in how we regard substance misuse if we are to break this cycle and make a serious attempt to tackle drug and alcohol addiction.
He points out that the facility would not be a “free-for-all facilities for drug addicts,” but it provides a clinically controlled environment with the aim of reaching groups of people that are hard to reach, including homeless people.
Similar facilities exist in Greece, Canada, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Luxembourg, Norway and Australia. The Australian facility is found in the King’s Court District of Sydney which opened in May 2001.
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