Over the next 9 months, the Oireachtas Committee on Drugs Use, chaired by Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon, will meet as it finishes its final report into the Citizens’ Assembly on drug use.

Some of the recommendations included within that final report were a whole Government approach to drug use in Ireland, the need to involve drug users in shaping drug policy, and a recommendation that possession of drugs for personal use be decriminalised.

Deputy Gannon told The Anton Savage Show that he believes the key to solving the issue of drug usage is to understanding what fuels the behaviour in the first place.

"We have had moralising on an issue of drugs since the 70s, we have Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just say no’, we've had all of that, it's not working,” he said.

“What I want to understand is why that is happening.

“If it's in every rugby club, football club, GAA club, whatever; if it's in most night clubs and pubs, you're talking to people who probably work nine-to-five jobs, probably hold themselves in high regard.

“They're fit, active, and they're still going into a toilet to consume something into their body.”

Narcotics addiction - alcohol, drugs and cocaine. Image: Alamy

According to Deputy Gannon, a “health-based approach” in which the personal possession of drugs is decriminalised would likely see better results.

“Let's do the Einstein quote; ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome’ - we have not tried a health-based approach,” he said.

“We know the criminal sanction approach just fuels an industry that's unregulated.

“We don't have a prison probably in Europe and America that's free of drugs, why do we think we'll have a society?

“So, we need a different approach, a health-based approach that's based in evidence, compassion, care - maybe that'll give us a better outcome than what we presently have.”

Deputy Gannon said that while criminal drugs suppliers should not be let off easy, stigmatising the individual use of drugs is unproductive.

Main image: Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon in the Newstalk studio.