Gay Byrne Says Legalise Drugs

Gay Byrne, one of Ireland's most respected television broadcasters and chairman of the Road Safety Authority, said on Eamonn Dunphy's radio show last Saturday that illegal drugs should be legalised because attempts to deal with the problem through law enforcement had "demonstrably failed".

He also said that he believed trying to control the drugs problem is a "hopeless task" and that fresh thinking was needed on the issue. "It's a major chasm for me that we should seriously consider legalising drugs. It seems to me that, in no other area of human endeavour, have you tried to cure a problem for 40 years by doing exactly the same thing and finding out that it doesn't work," he said.

These are reasonable enough statements to make. Whether you think drugs should be legalised or not, everyone acknowledges that our current policies are an abject failure. In fact, the only one who continues to flog the dead horse of prohibition is our beloved Grainne Kenny. The Ian Paisley of drugs policy has called for him to resign for the comments he made. She said Mr Byrne's views directly impacted on his role as the chairman of the Road Safety Authority.

Apparently, Gay Byrne suggesting we should consider alternative methods to dealing with the drug problem is no different than admitting that he snorts cocaine off his dashboard every evening when he drives home. It would be a different matter if Byrne had said that smoking a joint won't impair your driving or something. But he didn't.

This is absolute propaganda on Kenny's part. She wants Joe Average to associate the idea of legalising drugs with being a junkie and criminal, and its advocates to be demonised, hell, to lose their jobs!

Her hysterical reaction to this has been absurd and I find it amazing that she gets the media attention that she does when less...insane 'anti-drug' folks are around. I only hope that Gay Byrne isn't negatively effected by all this. I can't find his contact information but I recommend everyone to get behind him. Let's not make talking about legalisation a thoughtcrime!