TD criticises hard-hitting UN attack on legalising cannabis
The semi-judicial agency charged with enforcing international drug treaties said such moves posed “a grave danger to public health”.
The strongly-worded statement from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) sends a message ahead of an upcoming high-level review of the laws, which will be followed by a special session of the UN General Assembly in 2016.
Publishing its annual report, INCB president Raymond Yans said the developments in Uruguay and the US states of Colorado and Washington “contravenes” drug control conventions.
“These developments do pose a very serious challenge to the international drug control system and they represent a grave threat to public health,” he said.
“Member states themselves have recognised the dangers posed by cannabis abuse and committed themselves to the implementation, the full implementation, of the convention.”
In December, Uruguay approved a bill to legalise and regulate the sale and production of marijuana.
The sale of cannabis by licensed suppliers to adults aged over 21 became legal in Colorado last January. Washington state is due to follow in the summer.
Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan TD, who last November put forward a bill to regulate cannabis, described the statement from the INCB as “the last sting of a dying wasp”.
The Roscommon-South Leitrim deputy said: “The [INCB] president would want to realise the laws were put in place by nations and nations are changing direction on this issue.”
He said Mr Yans’ comments were based on “misinformation” and contrary to what people were telling him.
He said the trend among countries was “moving rapidly in the direction of the repeal of prohibition” and said the US was leading the charge.
“There are six plebiscites or referendums in the US this year, including California in November, the ninth biggest economy in the planet and its odds-on to legalise,” said Mr Flanagan.
“I believe what will happen in the US will have a domino effect. The situation is changing and things could evolve quicker than the UN review.”
He said there were moves across many countries in Europe, including Spain and Portugal, but that “little Ireland was behind the times”.
Mr Flanagan said there should be a debate in Ireland in the run up to the 2016 review.
Citywide, an umbrella group of drug projects, has called for a debate on drug laws and is in favour of the decriminalisation of drug possession.
It said between 25 and 30 countries had implemented some form of decriminalisation, although it added that legalisation was a “more complex” issue.
