I don’t want my teenagers dabbling with cannabis. It is too risky. Photo posed
While the reference to decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use was just a sliver of the Fianna Fáil manifesto this week, it got a reaction because people are looking for a point of connection to this election and they do not want to normalise and increase access to drugs.
However, it also got a reaction because many people get decriminalisation and legislation mixed up. At one point I was hazy on this thinking. For instance, in Portugal, drug use is still prohibited, but the sanction used in response to being caught with drugs means you get treated like a patient, not a criminal.
