Very interesting news! I wouldn't have expected Ireland to be on this forefront. When I got to the paragraph below, I also couldn't help wondering which nation that was:
"His comments follow a leaked report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, appearing to call for a worldwide decriminalisation on 19 October. The report was reportedly withdrawn after at least one nation put pressure on the international body to bury the findings of Dr Monica Beg, chief of the HIV/AIDs section of the UNODC in Vienna."
From an outsider perspective, I viewed Ireland as somewhat socially conservative. "Somewhat" meaning that while a significant proportion of the population has liberal/progressive views, I felt that segment was less than majority, therefore unable to swing the vote on issues like this.
Without doubt an issue that needs reform (which I believe is coming - there's a lot of campaigning around it).
Would be surprised if many people outside the country knew about this problem though. Of course, its possible I'm wrong which is the reason I asked in the first place.
This is a test as to whether we can downvote a post that we've replied to. Nothing in this post is relevant to the discussion at hand, and no criticism of DanBC's point is implied by my downvote. He volunteered for this experiment.
"His comments follow a leaked report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, appearing to call for a worldwide decriminalisation on 19 October. The report was reportedly withdrawn after at least one nation put pressure on the international body to bury the findings of Dr Monica Beg, chief of the HIV/AIDs section of the UNODC in Vienna."