Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

Irish guy here (although I live in California now). Demographics, mass abandonment of the Catholic church in recent years (not least due to sex scandals, and the bruising effects of the global financial crisis, which has led to a more pragmatic assessment of priorities.

I'm very happy about it too. While I'm not in any rush to head home to the inclement Irish weather it feels like a great validation to see this tide of social liberalization. I was born in 1970 and grew up in a country where divorce was illegal, corporal punishment in schools was legal (and liberally dispensed), and drug use was presented as a moral/class failing. Growing up in a violent household in a country where family life was reified, I fled to the UK as soon as I was old enough to leave home and have rarely been back since. Maybe I should start planning a holiday.

Not to take away from either positive story - both are really fantastic - but I think they're both isolated events, with slightly different causes, and sadly don't really represent a paradigm shift.

The national recognition of gay marriage was a worldwide story largely because it was a popular vote. Other - perhaps more generally progressive - countries had already legislated for it without needing that public vote. We only needed it because our actual constitution is so outdated and regressive to begin with.

The drug decriminalisation is more surprising, and rather than being something representative of the current government (who are otherwise extremely conservative), it seems more to be the work of a single relatively maverick government minister. However, while he seems genuine in his attempt, there's a general election in the new year so it's likely a pre-election promise and not something that there's intent to deliver on in this term.

I'd really love if this were the case, but sadly it really isn't.

The affect of US tech companies coming here has largely been a small-scale version of Palo Alto-esque gentrification of a small area of Dublin (docklands) and any improvements in standard of living being limited to a small white male tech elite. Overall poverty is up (we're dealing with a very serious recent homelessness crisis) and average standards of living have dropped significantly in the country otherwise and reported economic improvements in world news are typical of our conservative government's focus on primarily export-based GDP figures, etc. over actual progressive population-based data.

I think on the other hand, politics aside, there is a definite strong movement away from the church at least, which I think is largely a lingering result of the various very public abuse scandals over the past few decades.

Edit: That NPR article is interesting in its focus on Cork. I live in Dublin, so I can't really comment much anecdotally on Cork, but with the exception of Apple, almost all major US tech firms that have HQ-ed here (Google, Facebook, MS, Twitter, etc.) are Dublin-based, so it seems an unusual focus in that regard.

> However, while Mr O Ríordáin told The Irish Times that there was a “strong consensus that drugs across the board should be decriminalised,” he said it would be for Ireland’s next government to discuss.

Is probably the most important paragraph there. Election is in the new year - this is probably pre-canvass fluff. That does still indicate a belief that this is what voters want however, which is positive.

Irishman here - living in Canada nearly two years now.

It's not very sudden to be honest - changes like the Marriage Equality Act have been wanted by a lot of people for a long time.

The criminalisation of drug use clearly doesnt work the entire world over. In Ireland, especially Dublin, it's not unusual to see a heroin addict shooting up on public transport.

I honestly feel that Irish people are in general a fairly liberal bunch. It can't be emphasised enough how much the Catholic Church held the country back. I don't think non-Irish people will understand just how high esteem (read: fear) that we held the institution in.

All we need now is to remove religion (not necessarily the teachings but rather the role the Church plays) from the eductation system and we'll really be getting somewhere.