I’m guessing I’m not alone when I saw that I’m absolutely sick of almost everywhere smelling of cannabis.
It’s a disgusting, acrid smell and it has a strange ability to hold much of its pungency as it disperses through the air. If you’re unlucky enough to be breathing too enthusiastically while walking past a user you often get a face full of the crap which may cause you to cough or gag.
Although other areas are far from immune, Dublin, no surprises there, seems to be the worst place for this,
We know that drug use in general is widespread, but you can’t smell cocaine or heroin off someone, so cannabis is what draws most of my ire on a daily basis.
Critics might argue that those two are more harmful than their smelly cousin – and that may be true in some ways – but almost every time I hear drug use being referenced in the course of criminal proceedings, cannabis is credited as having been the starter drug of the accused.
The green stuff seems to be far from ‘harmless’, as some like to claim, and you may have heard the term ‘cannabis induced psychosis’ emerge in relation to the brutal murder of Fabiole Camara De Campos.
Far from serious than the offence caused to my nostrils, the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland (CPsychI) have said that use of the drug poses the “gravest threat to the mental health of young people in Ireland today”, with some doctors reporting drug use among children as young as seven.
Yesterday afternoon I saw a group of teen boys smoking it in a Greystones area carpark – not for the first time – leaving the whole place absolutely stinking of the stuff. Drug consumption in the specific spot is an ongoing issue with cannabis enthusiasts even smashing through security doors on numerous occasions to smoke in the carpark according to a security guard working in the adjoining supermarket.
In 2021, President of the CPsychI Dr. William Flannery said, “Cannabis represents the gravest threat to the mental health of young people in Ireland today. It is by far the most widely used illegal drug in the country and we know that its potency has spiked in recent years, leading to a significant rise in hospital admissions among young people with a cannabis-related diagnosis,”
At this stage you’d have to be a bit of a dope – pun intended – to believe that the habitual consumption of cannabis is harmless. I’m looking at you Gino Kenny.
In spite of the reported risks and its status as an illegal substance, smoking cannabis seems to be becoming almost as ubiquitous as cigarettes from what I’ve seen in my frequent travels in and around the city centre.
I’ve seen it being openly used on the Luas, on almost any street you could name, outside asylum accommodation and even outside the Criminal Courts of Justice.
Cannabis is used to tranquilise the senses, and as such plays a key role in rendering young people, particularly males it would seem, somewhat zombified. It makes them ok with being bored, which is something that the young should never be.
I’ve lost count of the number of people who attend the criminal courts while stinking of the stuff, I’ve even witnessed a young man charged with possession of, you’ve guessed it, cannabis swear to a judge that he wouldn’t touch the stuff again while the smell of it was rising off him.
I recently saw a young man on the Luas at 11am with a huge joint in his hand as if it were nothing more than a ball pen.
More disturbingly, I’ve seen individuals with toddlers in buggies smoking joints. I’m sick of it.
While I understand the instinct to question why the Gardaí aren’t effectively tackling the issue – and it’s not something they actually have to go to a lot of trouble to detect because of the strong smell it emits- I’ve seem Gardaí bring individuals before the courts time and time again on possession charges only to have them either receive a suspended sentence or be ordered to pay a fine of around €100.
Like so many other things – suspended sentences for those caught in possession of child sex abuse material for example – the book stops with the government here. They are failing to effectively tackle this issue, I dare say, some of them are smoking weed themselves.