Hard drugs temporarily legal in Ireland due to constitutional loophole

March 11, 2015

, Ireland's Health Minister, introduced emergency legislation in the lower house of the Irish parliament yesterday evening, to negate the legal loophole created by a decision from Dublin's Court of Appeal that morning. Various hard drugs &mdash; including, ecstasy, and magic mushrooms &mdash; were rendered legal, following the law governing their prohibition being found to be unconstitutional.

The drug possession case of Stanislav Bederev led to the legal loophole; his lawyers arguing the 2010 addition of several drugs to the country's controlled substances list, governed by the , was unlawful. They contended it was unconstitutional to add these substances to the list without consulting the Oireachtas &mdash; i.e., parliament.

The Irish government is stressing the urgency of parliamentary legislation to rectify the situation. "It is now important from both a public health and criminal justice perspective that the legislation be enacted as soon as possible", said a government spokesperson. The Health Minister expressed concern both for the welfare of individuals taking advantage of the temporary legality of the substances involved, and for drug-related convictions handed down since the now-unconstitutional changes came into effect.

"The emergency legislation I am introducing today will re-instate the status quo ante and re-control all drugs that were controlled prior to this judgment", said Mr Varadkar.