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Fianna F\u00e1il have been accused of being \u201coutdated\u201d for their stance against decriminalization of cannabis \u2013 and saying the drug is dangerous.<\/p>\nFianna F\u00e1il have been accused of being \u201coutdated\u201d for their stance against decriminalization of cannabis \u2013 and saying the drug is dangerous.<\/p>\n
Fianna F\u00e1il candidate Mary Fitzpatrick made the comments on Friday when speaking to the media about drugs and crime in the wake of gangland murders in Dublin and Drogheda in the last year.<\/p>\n
Ms Fitzpatrick said there was a sense of ambivalence from teenagers in Ireland about cannabis, a mentality of \u201cit\u2019s OK, it\u2019s just cannabis\u201d, and said more must be done to inform young people about drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hugely damaging to their future and hugely damaging for their community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment the messaging, to a certain extent the HSE takes on some level of communications, but we need to get those messages delivered in the schools, by communities, and young people need to buy into this as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people have been really captured by what happened to young Keane (Mulready Woods), the connection there is, there\u2019s an opportunity to connect that in their minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe as adults in society need to say \u2018this isn\u2019t acceptable and we won\u2019t normalize it\u2019, and as adults we have to live that truth as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments have been rejected by People Before Profit\u2019s Gino Kenny as \u201ccompletely outdated\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously cannabis is very prevalent to society, whether we like it or not, and some young people are consuming it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy stance on it would be, and our party\u2019s stance on it is, that it needs to be regulated, and I would even go further than decriminalization, it has to be legalized.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment, it\u2019s unregulated and if people are in possession, then they could be criminalized.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that generally has been a waste of resources for our society, and I think we have to be discussing the legalization of cannabis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has to be a different model of how it\u2019s actually regulated by the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are going to consume drugs whether we like it or not, but there has to be a different mindset \u2013 throwing more laws and more police resources in preventing people consuming any drug hasn\u2019t really worked because people are consuming more drugs probably than ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook about other drugs that are legal, just a particular alcohol or tobacco, they kill people on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, over-consumption of cannabis is not good for your health whatsoever, which is more reason that it should be regulated and taken out of the hands of criminal gangs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s more dangerous than any other substance that\u2019s legal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Kenny\u2019s party colleague Ruth Coppinger echoed the sentiment when asked about the current state of law and order in Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hardly a secret that people take recreational drugs, alcohol is a drug that\u2019s legal and causes a lot of damage in society,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hear this often in the media, that someone goes out on a Saturday and smokes hash is actually worse and enabling the whole crime issue, that\u2019s ridiculous, you can\u2019t just say suddenly people are going to stop using drugs \u2013 that\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to deal with the causes of drug abuse which are social and class based.\u201d<\/p>\n