Why magic mushrooms should not be banned

ALCOHOL, a legal drug, causes thousands of deaths, unbearably strains the health service and costs Irish society €3 billion a year.

Heroin, an illegal drug, causes hundreds of deaths, wastes garda resources and is at the root of a lot of violent crime.

Magic mushrooms, as a legal drug, caused at least one death in Ireland in recent years, but they haven’t caused anything remotely like the problems of alcohol or heroin.