Ireland’s Minister for Justice, Simon Harris, calls out drug prohibitionists for the harms associated with drug prohibition.

On the 16th of February Ireland's justice Minister took to the floor of the Dáil chamber and gave a speech about how drug users are to blame for the harms & violence associated with the trade of illegal drugs. However the minster was wrong in who is to blame for the violence associated with the trade of illegal drugs . The minister doesn’t have to look very far for who is to blame as he himself and his colleagues in government who continue to uphold the “War on Drugs” approach to the use of certain drugs in society are the ones truly responsible for the violence and bloodshed associated with the illegal drug trade.

We only have to go back to the alcohol prohibition era in the United States where alcohol prohibition gave rise to many violent gangs many of who corrupted local law enforcement and made walking the streets far more dangerous for everyone. Not long after ending alcohol prohibition did the violence associated with its trade subside and a legitimate industry emerged creating jobs and making alcohol safer due to regulations to protect the consumer.

To me this shows that the violence associated with the trade of an illegal drug is purely due to that drug being prohibited. Here in Ireland on one street you could have as many as 10 pubs and not one of those pubs owners would engage in violence towards another of the pub owners in order to take their customers. So with that in mind I went and edited Minister Slimey Harris’s speech to correct the direction of blame towards those responsible.

Should the Minister for Justice Simon Harris be sincere about his desire in ending the violence associated with the trade of illegal drugs, then he needs to engage with the many campaigners looking to end the War on Drugs. The Minister needs to set in motion policy that will allow for safe and regulated access to a drug users drug of choice while also crippling those same violent organised crime gangs that have spilt much blood on the streets of Ireland.

A motion on the Citizens Assembly on Ireland’s Drug Policy will brought to the floor at 4pm today by the Minister with responsibility for Ireland’s drug strategy, Hildegarde Naughton, and can be watched here . It’s scheduled for a 110minute slot so it should be interesting to see who has done their homework in regards to drug policies that don’t discriminate and actually protect people instead of putting them in danger.