‘Less than 5%’ of drug convictions result in prison term

LESS than 5% of all convictions for drug-related offences result in a prison sentence, according to a new book.

Of the 10,000 drug offences on average each year, little more than 300 end in a jail term.

In his book The Irish War on Drugs, the Seductive Folly of Prohibition, Paul O’Mahony said the vast majority of cases were treated relatively leniently.

“The so-called Irish ‘war on drugs’ is not the relentless and ruthless blitzkrieg implied by the overheated political rhetoric. In fact, the vast majority of the relatively few ‘inherent’ drug crimes (possession, supply, etc) that are prosecuted annually are dealt with quite leniently,” he said, adding that most are dealt with at district court level and offenders tend to get a fine, probation or community service.

Mr O’Mahony said that of the 310 jail terms for drug offences in 2001, almost two thirds were for less than two years and a third were for less than six months. Only eight were for 10 years or more.

He said while there was no official garda policy allowing discretion in pursuing possession offences, particularly in relation to cannabis, there appeared to be differences in practice between Dublin and other regions.

He said there were 670 charges for possession of cannabis in the south-east region in 2001, compared with 764 in Dublin, in the context of Dublin having a population six times that of the south-east.

Mr O’Mahony said the main area of garda success related to seizures, but this success was limited.

“It is limited to causing relatively minor ripples in an estimated billion-euro business, which seems to be able to continue its uninterrupted supply, to all areas of the country, of very substantial amounts of illicit drugs at cheaper than ever prices,” he said.

He said 1996 marked a watershed in government drug strategy, following the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin by a drugs gang and mass street protests by communities hit by heroin.

He said there was a “quantum leap” in investment in harm reduction measures — most notably the dispensing of methadone to heron addicts — youth facilities and social justice measures.

But he said there was an equal emphasis on tougher and more repressive law enforcement approaches.

He said the creation of the Criminal Assets Bureau was “perhaps the most innovative and probably the most effective initiative” and described the parallel government strategy of prohibition and harm reduction as “riddled with inconsistencies and ambiguities, not to say hypocrisies”.