Eoin Ryan must be enjoying life in Brussels. The Fianna Fail MEP for Dublin clearly has no intention of returning to national politics any time soon. If he had, he would hardly have jeopardised his prospects of ever again serving in government by speaking frankly about drugs.
Ryan broke one of the successful politician’s unspoken rules last week when he admitted that decriminalising street narcotics is not unthinkable.
What’s more, he revealed that between 2000 and 2002, when he was minister of state with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, he actively considered legalising heroin. Along with government officials, the then minister visited some legally sanctioned clinics in Holland and Switzerland where heroin is dispensed to addicts for self-injection. Ryan decided against recommending that Ireland adopt a strategy of decriminalisation. To do so, he said, would have been a “drastic step”. Not, you will notice, outrageous, crazy or unimaginable — merely “drastic”. In reality, Ryan was acknowledging the fact that the government’s policy of prohibition has failed miserably — achieving nothing but the creation of increasingly ruthless criminal monopolies — and that all alternatives must therefore be seriously contemplated.
In Irish political terms, however, a willingness to concede this is almost invariably dismissed as dangerous lunacy. Most of our elected and wannabe elected representatives seem to view hysterical denunciations of drugs and drug-users as their daily duty.
Last month, for instance, Bertie Ahern reminded us that he is “against drugs, in any form”. The taoiseach made this statement at a press launch where alcohol, a form of drug, was being openly dispensed.
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Ryan made his comments during a conference in Dublin called Rethinking the War on Drugs, which heard Jerry Cameron, a retired Florida police chief, outlining how his experiences convinced him that prohibition is doomed to failure.
Irish ministers don’t have to look far for first-hand proof of the futility of their existing approach. The authorities can’t even keep drugs out of the prisons, much less off the streets. Unfortunately, one of the few politicians prepared to recognise the implications of this fact is no longer in a position to do anything about it.