Government delay allowing headshop drugs to gain a foothold
Issued : Friday 16 April, 2010
Statement by Pat Rabbitte TD
Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources
The tardy response of Government to the growth of headshops has meant that the substances on sale have taken a foothold amongst a growing number of young people. A supply-side solution alone at this stage will not deter most of those newly addicted customers from attempting to source these products elsewhere. Government sat back while these headshops dramatically increased until more than 100 are operating nationwide. These substances have damaging physical and psychological effects on those who consume or inject them.
These headshops are pushing mephedrone related products and other legal highs that ought to have been banned by Government. Where it can literally be a matter of life and death the Government's explanation that it is prevented from acting immediately because it would constitute a restriction of trade under EU regulations is feeble in the extreme. The principle of subsidiarity allows each member state to act in matters pertaining to the health of its citizens.
My colleagues Jan O'Sullivan and Joe Costello published our Planning Amendment Bill in order to get control of where these shops may be located. As the law stands local authorities are powerless since no specific planning permission is required for a change of use from one existing retail function to another. Of course, minors should be excluded from such premises.
After 30 years experience we know that where drugs like heroin were allowed gain a foothold their eradication later is virtually impossible. Government delay meeting this latest challenge is puzzling.
Government funding for harm reduction strategies and to reduce demand for drugs must be continued and enhanced. Government must take on board the Labour Party Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2010. And Government must apply the Misuse of Drugs Act to the family of harmful substances on offer in these headshops.
I have spoken to a number of meetings around the country organised by Labour Women on the worsening scale of human trafficking sometimes for purposes of labour exploitation but more often to service the sex industry. Trafficking in human beings is a multi-billion dollar business controlled by the international criminal fraternity. Apart from being sold into sexual slavery these vulnerable young women - and they are usually young women - are often intimidated and subjected to violence.
The Labour Party was influential in the enactment for the first time of a law that creates a criminal offence of trafficking persons for the purpose of sexual or labour exploitation which moves Ireland towards compliance with international human rights standards. Despite our best efforts the Act does not adequately address the protection of, and provision of services to, victims of trafficking. One suspects that this approach was partly conditioned by an official scepticism about trafficking into Ireland. Events since enactment of the trafficking legislation have clearly shown that Ireland is not immune from this criminal activity and that those in the sex industry here are mainly from outside of the jurisdiction and many of them have been trafficked.
On the matter of protection of victims one significant Labour amendment was accepted but the Minister's position is that he will return to this issue in the Immigration Bill now awaiting Report Stage. From our point of view, however, immigration and trafficking are distinctly different issues.
In response to amendments run by the Opposition to criminalise the user of the services of a person trafficked and separately to criminalise the purchaser of sex, the then Justice Minister argued that where criminalisation was tried "the incidence of street prostitution had reduced and the manifestation of prostitution on the internet and mobile phones had increased." The present Government subsequently voted down an Opposition motion that would have required an official study to be prepared on this issue.
After much pressure arising from his decision to breathe new life into blasphemy in the Defamation Act, the Minister for Justice announced very recently that he intended bringing proposals to Government for a Referendum to excise the reference in the Constitution. At Question Time subsequently he appeared to resile from this commitment and put it on the long finger. It may be that the Government is attempting to dodge any Referendum this year - we had been promised a Referendum on the rights of the child - so as to avoid having to hold three By-Elections.
