Tony Duffin: Irish drug policy is following a similar path to Portugal — but nothing has happened yet

As the Citizens Assembly on Drugs Use begins its work in earnest, it’s important to consider that effective drug policy is informed by three elements —empathy, evidence and experience, writes Tony Duffin

'The evidence is clear that drug consumption rooms achieve what they are set up to do — namely, reduce the many and varied harms associated with street-based drug use.'

I was in Lisbon recently where I had arranged a series of meetings with people who are experts on responding to drug use. The people I met with are well placed to speak on the subject; not least of all because they have lived and worked in a jurisdiction where decriminalisation of drugs is well established; and where drug consumption rooms have recently been implemented.

In Portugal, drugs were decriminalised in 2001. This means drugs remain illegal, and the response to possession of drugs for personal use is a referral by the police to the Dissuasion Commission. There is plenty of evidence that this approach has worked better than if Portugal had continued to criminalise people who use drugs as in other European countries.