Why is 'decrminalise' in quotes? Is it b/c it's only partially decriminalized, or is it crappy journalism?
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Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
21–30 of 166 posts
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
A very random and uninformed guess - A lot of tech companies have opened up offices in Ireland (ostensibly due to tax laws) and have started to attract young, progressive talent into the country. This investment has helped the economy and raised the standard of living in Ireland, so less people are concerned with enforcing conservative/religion-based regulation. This article has some better stats/anecdotes: http://ww…
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 o…
Thanks for the inside perspective - hard to get a real sense of how a country is doing from GDP/economic indicators. Wishful thinking on my part that tech wealth would trickle down more effectively in Ireland than in the US.
On the homelessness crisis:
Amazing that housing prices in Dublin have jumped up 22.3% YoY. [1] What else do you see contributing to the rise in poverty/homelessness and the decline in living standards in Ireland?
[1] http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Ireland/Price-Hist...
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#23Ignoring the quality of the article, I am struck by one thing. Why has Ireland all of a sudden taken such a progressive shift? First national recognition of gay marriage, now this? I'm loving it, wherever it came from.
God is dead, paedophile priests, neighbouring cultural hegemons and cheap credit have killed him.
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
A very random and uninformed guess - A lot of tech companies have opened up offices in Ireland (ostensibly due to tax laws) and have started to attract young, progressive talent into the country. This investment has helped the economy and raised the standard of living in Ireland, so less people are concerned with enforcing conservative/religion-based regulation. This article has some better stats/anecdotes: http://ww…
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 o…
In Cork, big pharma (Pfizer, GSK, Johnson&Johnson) & some tech, Apple, EMC, Vmware, Amazon, Redhat.
Hard to say why the sudden progressive turn in Irish politics. With the marriage equality referendum 1 in 3 voted against, so there is still 33% of the country that I can guarantee you would be very conservative. But yes, for what was once a deeply religious country there has been a seismic shift in culture.
GenX is the generation where the shift first happened. I have seen the following reasons. Television (I'm not kidding), low-cost travel (Ryanair), 3rd-level education, Church scandals, ...
Very hard to say why this political shift, frankly even though people in Ireland have been talking for years about the decriminalisation of cannabis (t the very least) and even though I felt it must happen some day I am still surprised. The supervised injection clinics is a great idea.
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#25Ignoring the quality of the article, I am struck by one thing. Why has Ireland all of a sudden taken such a progressive shift? First national recognition of gay marriage, now this? I'm loving it, wherever it came from.
A very random and uninformed guess - A lot of tech companies have opened up offices in Ireland (ostensibly due to tax laws) and have started to attract young, progressive talent into the country. This investment has helped the economy and raised the standard of living in Ireland, so less people are concerned with enforcing conservative/religion-based regulation. This article has some better stats/anecdotes: http://ww…
If anything there has been a net emigration of young people here in the past few years due to the global economic crisis. We have had multi-national technology companies in Ireland for a long time, so it's not that.
Ireland lived under the thumb of the church until the 80s. They dictated the morals of the nation, and when their corruption and hypocrisy was exposed it became OK to speak out against them without being ostracized. Condoms were legalized in 1978, without prescription in 1985. Homosexuality in 1993. Divorce in 1995. We transitioned from one of the most conservative countries in the West to one of the most liberal in a remarkably short time.
The gay marriage referendum was primarily seen as younger generation issues, but I was pleased to see that the older generations showed their support in the end - the general attitude was "It's not harming anyone, so why should I stand in their way".
Our government, however, would never be the first to make bold reforms in drug laws. We have the United States, Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain to thank for the progress made. Some former ministers responsible for drugs have come out in support of treating it as a health instead of a criminal issue AFTER they left office.
Anyways I think that this is just an election ploy for the youth vote. Here is what the current Taoiseach (prime minister) had to say about legalising cannabis on the Youtube Digital Debate Q&A at the last election: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6k9sohbulg (the typical answer to a question was about a minute).
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#26It is a step in the right direction, but it still half-baked. Without decriminalizing production as well, they are maintaining a monopoly for those that works outside of the law. Which means a very profitable tax free market that has to recreate all of the state features like physical safety and insurance policies from scratch. Every nation that forbids something that is in demand, is gestating its own competition. The laws of capitalism are brutal and can not be escaped. I wonder how far we can go by following the principle that it should be easier for demand to be satisfied legally than illegally.
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#27Ignoring the quality of the article, I am struck by one thing. Why has Ireland all of a sudden taken such a progressive shift? First national recognition of gay marriage, now this? I'm loving it, wherever it came from.
It's a nice idea, but I can see the UK leaning on them, hard, not to do this. I can see the arguments now:
- People will get the ferry to Ireland and bring them to the UK!
- Drug tourism! Amsterdam! Everybody hates Amsterdam! Look at how terrible everything is there!
- Think of the children!!
- It's not aligned with the UK's policy of increasing criminalisation!
- Think of what you'll do to your prison sector!
Hopefully Ireland will give their former (hell, ongoing) occupiers the finger should they dare raise a stink.
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they are quoting the minister, whose remarks form the only basis for the story. No legislation or formal rules have been published yet, so there's no objective basis for describing the proposal. The use of quotation marks is entirely appropriate and not crappy at all.
The crappy part is how the journal author tacked " for personal use " onto the title to make it sound like a move to condone hard drug use, when in fact the movement is just the opposite - to help addicts get clean instead of giving them criminal records. So it's crappy journalism, but for a different reason.
You might want to look into the operational realities for Dutch cannabis 'coffee shops'. I haven't lived there for ~15 years and don't know how it goes now, bu back then there would be multiple deliveries per day to a busy shop so as to stay compliant with the letter of the law about the (very generous) quantities that could be possessed at any given time. This is an important distinction since Ireland has no plans to decriminalize sale or distribution...
...but somehow I suspect that if this is what you had meant, you'd have said so the first time. I think you will be happier if you give up trying to parse headlines so closely, given that they're the literary equivalent of of candy.
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#29Ignoring the quality of the article, I am struck by one thing. Why has Ireland all of a sudden taken such a progressive shift? First national recognition of gay marriage, now this? I'm loving it, wherever it came from.
I came here to say this. This is a huge departure from the status quo in Ireland, very surprised to see this.
There's nothing new here, Ireland has been changing at a very rapid pace for the last 20 years - becoming progressively more liberal due to many influences, not least the fact that all of a sudden most young people were staying in the country during the celtic tiger years.
Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
A very random and uninformed guess - A lot of tech companies have opened up offices in Ireland (ostensibly due to tax laws) and have started to attract young, progressive talent into the country. This investment has helped the economy and raised the standard of living in Ireland, so less people are concerned with enforcing conservative/religion-based regulation. This article has some better stats/anecdotes: http://ww…
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 o…
Describing the Dublin tech community as 'a small white male tech elite' is bizarre. Given the still tiny number of non-white people in Ireland, and the relative number in the tech industry, outside of the teaching hospitals the tech industry is probably the most ethnically diverse in the country. There's certainly a gender disparity, but given the relative ease of getting into tech (via Springboard and similar), this is likely a combination of legacy factors and relative lack of interest in STEM at university level. Sounds like you're importing a narrative from the US.
Agreed on the lack of progress in poverty, social inequality is growing - in part as a result of the concentration of growth in the tech industry, as well as the stagnation of public sector wages and the slow removal of hiring freezes.