The Garda Commissioner has said drugs investigations are currently focused on major drug dealers and transnational organised crime groups, not on addicts who need treatment and help.
Campaigners have welcomed this approach and say it is of no benefit to gardaí or society to pursue people whose main issue is addiction.
Ken is a recovering heroin addict who started taking heroin when he was very young. He is now 50 years old and is still being treated for his addiction.
"I knew nothing about drugs, I went in head first like an idiot," he says.
Ken bears living testimony to the detrimental impact of the multi-million euro drugs business.
It is visible every day all over the country through crime and those coming before the courts, in addiction and homelessness and in health and other social problems.
Ken is one of thousands of drug addicts whom Garda Commissioner Drew Harris says is more suited to a health led rather than a criminal justice approach.
Mr Harris says their policing operations are currently focused on the major dealers, suppliers and transnational organised crime groups, as opposed to the addicts and those dealing to feed their own habits.
Open drug taking and dealing appears more prevalent today. It is visible in towns and cities all over the country. The smell of cannabis is often quite strong on the streets and in parks.
Commissioner Harris insists however that gardaí are not ignoring the problem or the street dealers and he says that those caught with drugs will be prosecuted. But they say they are not proactively targeting those who clearly need help.
"We want to disrupt the supply," Commissioner Harris says, "rather than focusing on the individuals who are often in pretty dire straits".
"They are dealing because they are often paying back a drug debt for instance, you’re running in to all sorts of coercion around the street dealers themselves."
This approach has been reflected in the most recent crime figures because while the numbers being reported and arrested for possession, street dealing and cultivation are down over the year, drugs importation has increased 83%.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Welcoming the initiative, campaigners say it is a policing approach that makes sense.
Anna Quigley from the CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign says it is of no benefit to anyone to arrest drug addicts who need help.
Society she says needs to stop criminalising people for using drugs and invest in the addiction and health services and the employment and supports they need.
"Anybody from any walk of life can end up with an addiction issue, just as many people from affluent backgrounds use drugs, but far and away the most harms are concentrated in poorer areas.
"People from well-off areas are not visible. People using cannabis, hash and cocaine in the comfort of their own homes on a Saturday night are not an issue for the public because they don’t see it.
"But when they see people on the streets using, it bothers them, but what you’re looking at there is a problem of housing, homelessness."
Gardaí are particularly critical of the more affluent people in society using drugs, particularly the cocaine users who do not make the link between their drug use and the transnational organised crime groups and South and Central American drugs cartels.
Commissioner Harris pointed out this week that Ireland is now a transit hub for these cartels because gardaí are now seizing more drugs than are needed for the Irish market.
The CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign has been in existence for 30 years and says it is still seeing the same drug problems with no real solutions.
It says the Department of Health is currently working on the next drugs strategy and as part of that, the Government needs to commit to significant investment in supports and services.
Ken says he has learned too late that drugs destroy lives including his own. Treatment, particularly methadone maintenance, has not worked for him.
"I was on methadone most of my life," he said.
"I was told this will get you off heroin, you’ll be cured. I was told two-and-a-half weeks, nearly 30 years later I was on it.
"Methadone clinics do not work. You are a cog in their machine."
Ken also says drugs awareness should be taught in schools and is warning people to stay away from them.
"Hash, weed is a stepping stone, if a friend offers, say no.
"Don't take drugs, it's part of a bad machine, it destroys lives," he says.
