Legalising drugs will only worsen crime - Lenihan
Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan arriving for the Patrick MacGill summer school in Glenties, Co Donegal last night, accompanied by school director Dr Joe Mulhollland
Wednesday July 18 2007
LEGALISING drugs to help eliminate a large portion of serious crime was dismissed yesterday by Justice Minister Brian Lenihan as a fanciful argument.
Decriminalisation, he argued, would be a recipe for a vastly increased dependency on drugs.
"The harm that would be done by going down that road would far exceed any benefits that might be gained from it," he told the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal.
Mr Lenihan said it was nonsense to think Ireland could take that step while drugs remained controlled in other jurisdictions.
"People who make the argument for decriminalisation rarely seem to carry its logic to its conclusion and say that if people stopped using illicit drugs then the crime associated with supply would disappear."
He said society had to tackle some real issues about the demand for illicit drugs. "It is a cruel irony that while the use of what would be regarded as hard drugs was once confined to areas of deprivation, there is evidence now that in many cases it has become the product of affluence."
He said the value of human life had been set at nought by members of the gangs at the centre of this pernicious trade.
"We have seen a spate of savage killings. Sometimes, they happen because of rows that take place related to the drugs trade.
"Others are related to feuds. Anyone who has any doubt about the dangers of illicit drugs and the corrosive effect they have on society need only look at the savagery with which often 'coked up' young men take each others' lives," the minister added.
Mr Lenihan was critical of those who underestimated the difficulties which gardai confronted in trying to stop these killings. "They get absolutely no help from the people they are trying to protect and when killings take place they get no co-operation either.
"To condemn these killings as in some way a failure on the part of the gardai - or, indeed, the Government - flies in the face of the harsh realities involved. It is no consolation that the vast majority of these killings take place among members of criminal gangs," Mr Lenihan said.
"To take that view would be to share their disregard of human life. Tragically, it has been the case that their activities, too, have spilled over into the law abiding community."
The truth, he said, was that the fight against those gangs was going to be long and had to be relentless. He called on gang members who feared for their lives to break out of the vicious circle in which they found themselves and talk to the gardai. Mr Lenihan said he had told the Garda Commissioner there was no limit to the funding available for the witness protection programme.
