One of the country’s leading priests Fr Peter McVerry has claimed that the the war on drugs has been lost since long ago.
Fr McVerry, made his announcement after heavily criticising the government for not doing enough after they spent billions of euro trying to address the problem. Fr McVerry claims despite their best efforts the government has failed in their efforts in trying to prevent the use of drugs amongst the nations young people, as a result drugs are now more readily available than ever.
Fr McVerry rather harsh comments come as the Oireachtas Justice Committee have announced proposals that will see harsher penalties imposed on those who carry small amounts of drugs. Fr. McVerry further stated that the government must address the problem sooner rather than later by having re-think on the way we tackle drug use here.
Fr McVerry said; “For the last 30 years, we’ve probably spent several billion Euros trying to achieve that, and the end result is that more and more drugs are available in every town and every village in Ireland,” “The war on drugs has been lost, and it was lost long ago. We have to recognise that, and we have to change our policies on drug use.”