A Review of Paul O’Mahony, The Irish War on Drugs: The Seductive Folly of Prohibition
British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 49(3), 2009, 425–427
6 Pages Posted: 19 Oct 2012 Last revised: 9 Aug 2015
Date Written: 2009
Abstract
The nature and scope of drug policy debates are notoriously difficult to synthesize into a coherent and exhaustive set of arguments and counter-arguments. This review suggests that Paul O’Mahony’s 'The Irish War on Drugs: The Seductive Folly of Prohibition' succeeds admirably in achieving such a synthesis as well as in presenting a strong case for interpreting the fundamental rights to privacy and bodily integrity as including the right to take mood-altering substances, provided that this does not impact on the welfare or rights of others. The term 'harm reduction' is a familiar one in drug policy analysis and O’Mahony’s deconstruction of its variants is a particular strength of this book. Moreover, his approach recognizes that rights are social entitlements that must be argued for: the book provides a reasoned justification for why the right to drug use should be established in law and argues that a three-pillar social approach is required in order to remove international law barriers to national drug law reform. The review concludes with some remarks on the challenges facing anti-prohibitionists in light of the power and influence of the unregulated global illegal drugs industry.
Keywords: drug policy, war on drugs, drug prohibition, Ireland, right to drug use
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