The State is likely to face a large compensation claim from Mr Frank Shortt, a Co Donegal nightclub owner and chartered accountant who spent three years in jail after allegedly allowing drugs to be sold at the entertainment venue. Yesterday he won his appeal against the conviction. Mr Shortt told The Irish Times: "I have suffered greatly at the hands of the establishment, but justice, which has been absent for so long, has been achieved here today." His counsel, Mr Eoin McGonigal SC, said he would be raising at a later date the issue of a miscarriage of justice. A certificate of miscarriage, issued by the court, provides the basis for seeking compensation. [continues 408 words]
The Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Bobby Molloy, said the preliminary findings of a drug research programme by the Medical Bureau of Road Safety (MBRS) underlined growing concern about the influence of drugs on driving behaviour. He told delegates the identification of the presence of drugs was more complex than for alcohol. Internationally, research programmes were being carried out in this area. To advance research on drugs and driving in Ireland, his Department had pledged additional funding to the MBRS to carry out a two-year programme of drug analysis of blood and urine specimens. [continues 194 words]
Responsibility for monitoring health in the State's prisons should be removed from the Department of Justice and taken over by the Department of Health, a Dail committee was told last night. Dr Joe Barry, medical adviser to the National Drugs Strategy Team, said about half of the prison population was addicted to drugs and about 80 per cent of those addicts were testing positive for hepatitis C. "Change in prison healthcare is urgently needed and there is a great argument for giving responsibility to the Department of Health and Children rather than the Department of Justice. I think we are storing up big problems the way we are dealing with this." [continues 266 words]
Improved and increased cooperation between the business and the voluntary sectors could transform the drug-users of today into the taxpayers of tomorrow, a European-funded project has concluded. The final report from the Integra project, "From Residential Treatment to Employment", was published at the Merchants' Quay Project in Dublin yesterday. Merchants' Quay is the largest voluntary drug treatment centre in the State. The two-year project was initiated as a result of a gap in drug treatment services identified by Merchants' Quay. It aimed to develop a programme which would minimise the risk of recovering addicts relapsing. [continues 154 words]
An even more dangerous version of the drug ecstasy which has been circulating in Europe is threatening to enter the Dublin drugs scene. A number of seizures of the drug, paramethoxyamphetamine or PMA, which looks identical to the ecstasy tablet, have been made in Europe. The British National Criminal Intelligence Service yesterday confirmed some had been made in Britain. The drug has not been detected in recent seizures in Ireland. The drug is released more slowly into the system than regular ecstasy. This could lead a person to believe a tablet is having no effect and take another. [continues 241 words]
"How many of our politicians are drug addicts?" was the headline in Berlin tabloid BZ yesterday after traces of cocaine were discovered in toilets used by elected officials and civil servants in Berlin's Reichstag parliament building. It was more a case of red faces than white noses around the parliament yesterday after the revelation by television station SAT1 that 22 of 28 toilets tested were contaminated with cocaine. "It's unbelievable what was in this report. The toilets where cocaine was found are cleaned every day, sometimes even twice," said parliamentary spokesman Mr Hans Hotter, choosing to defend the professionalism of the toilet cleaners rather than the habits of the toilet users. The federal government first dismissed the findings as "unbelievable", but the federal public prosecutor yesterday announced it was launching an investigation into the matter. [continues 270 words]
A number of children at a special school for young offenders have been repeatedly found under the influence of cannabis, the Department of Education has confirmed. Staff at Trinity House special school in Lusk, Co Dublin, have found several residents "stoned" on cannabis on a number of occasions in the past month, a Department of Education spokesman said. "The school has encountered the intermittent use of cannabis during the past few weeks but the problem has been addressed," he said. "All parents who have children at the school have been informed and the children that were involved in bringing the drugs into the school have been confronted. Their privileges have been taken away from them." [continues 240 words]
Limits on the sale of paracetamol will be introduced by the end of the year, the Department of Health and Children has confirmed. They are likely to restrict the number of tablets which can be sold at a time, with higher limits for chemists than for other outlets, and a prescription needed for more than 50 tablets. Hospitals dealt with 1,452 cases of paracetamol poisoning in the Republic last year, among them 43 cases of temporary or permanent liver damage. [continues 252 words]
Acceptance Of Dealers By Young People Worries Gardai "Drug dealing has become more complex. It's more fluid and much more high-tech now, with mobile phones and cars. Before it was more structured and visible, now it's gone underground and more difficult to detect." Det Insp Tony Quilter of Cork City Divisional Drugs Squad is talking about the changes he and his staff have noticed in Cork over the past two years. Det Insp Quilter points to the Garda crime statistics for 1999 to indicate the extent of the problem. Of the 1,018 prosecutions under the Misuse of Drugs Act, 165 were for possession for sale or supply, or drug dealing. [continues 1071 words]
Heroin addiction in Dublin's south inner city is over eight times higher than in the rest of the city, a conference was told yesterday. Mr Vincent Doherty, co-ordinator of the area's Local Drugs Task Force, said a recent report estimated 17.5 per cent of 15-24 year old males in the area were heroin addicts. This compared to an overall Dublin average of 2.1 per cent and a European average of 0.3 per cent. He was speaking at "Re-creating Hope", a conference reviewing the fight against drugs in the Liberties area. Voluntary workers, professionals and local people affected by drugs attended. He said the drugs problem was fuelled by underlying factors. "Current levels of resources are only a drop in the ocean to what is required to turn around the major social problems involved. [continues 178 words]
Gardai in south Dublin are investigating an outbreak of tyreslashing in two residential areas overnight and are considering possible connections to local drug dealers. Early yesterday, tyres on 31 cars in Templemore Avenue, off Highfield Road in Rathgar, were damaged. Tyres on four cars in Brandon Road, Drimnagh, were slashed a short while later. The slashing of tyres in residential areas is reminiscent of the actions of the gang led by the Dublin criminal, Martin Cahill, who was shot dead in 1994. This included a bomb attack which seriously injured the forensic scientist, Dr James Donovan, in 1982. [continues 310 words]
Young people taking ecstasy risk developing a schizophrenia-like illness from which they might never fully recover, a senior psychiatrist has warned. Dr Tony Sharkey, clinical director of psychiatry in Co Donegal, says he is seeing a large increase in the number of young adults suffering from psychosis brought on by drug abuse. "Initially, these young people are as disturbed as with any chronic psychiatric illness. They are up at night, they have abnormal beliefs, paranoid ideas. In layman's terms, they are very crazy," Dr Sharkey said. [continues 517 words]
The Irish Medicines Board (IMB) has defended a decision taken last year to recommend banning the sale of St John's Wort over the counter and making it available under prescription only. In the board's annual report for 1999, Mr Frank Hallinan, chief executive, said the board took the decision solely to protect public health. "None of the other motivations which have been attributed to us by various people came into our consideration," Mr Hallinan said. St John's Wort is a herbal medicine used in the treatment of mild to moderate depression and was sold until January this year in health shops and over the counter in pharmacies. Of the 993 requests made to the IMB for documentation under the Freedom of Information Act in 1999, 951 were from members of the public relating to St John's Wort, according to the annual report. [continues 189 words]
BRITAIN: The Conservative Party is under pressure to rethink its tough policy on drugs after seven members of the Shadow Cabinet admitted having tried cannabis in their youth. Insisting his experiences as a student - when he "very, very occasionally" smoked cannabis and tried amyl nitrate - were a world away from the image of serious drug users and dealers selling to children, the shadow culture secretary, Mr Peter Ainsworth, yesterday said the party's "zero tolerance" approach to drugs should be reviewed. [continues 359 words]
A Dutch national has gone on trial in Amsterdam charged with supplying ecstasy pills worth nearly pounds 1 million and amphetamines with a street value of pounds 600,000 to an Irish gangland figure, John Cunningham. Judges at Amsterdam Criminal Court heard that the accused man, Mr Johannes Altepost (39) of Oss, who allegedly supplied 100 kg of ecstasy pills and 50 kg of amphetamines to the Irishman, visited a key Irish contact in jail and had other meetings with suspected associates in Ireland. [continues 210 words]
BRITAIN: The British Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, said yesterday the Tories' proposed zero tolerance drugs policy was "mad" but he insisted political programmes should never be led by whether or not politicians had indulged in youthful high-jinks. Speaking on the BBC R4's Today programme, Mr Straw said the row within the Conservative Party over pounds 100 fines for the use of cannabis had shown they were "unfit to govern". Mr Straw said the zero tolerance proposal announced by the shadow home secretary, Ms Ann Widdecombe, at the Conservative party conference last week then dropped by the party leader, Mr William Hague, on Monday, was "mad" because it did not recognise the proportionate damage caused by different illegal drugs. [continues 143 words]
BRITAIN: The Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, was yesterday forced into an embarrassing rethink of the party's "zero tolerance" policy on cannabis after he acknowledged serious misgivings over the proposals among colleagues and said they would now be opened up for public consultation. After a bruising 24 hours of criticism levelled at the party, Mr Hague emerged from a meeting of the shadow cabinet at Conservative headquarters in London to clarify the position on drugs. Effectively performing a U-turn on its policy on cannabis, Mr Hague insisted the party was not abandoning its tough line on drugs "but we think there should be further discussion". [continues 339 words]
Shoppers in Bangor town centre watched in horror as a man collapsed out of a van yesterday after being critically injured in a booby-trap bomb attack. The attack is not being directly linked to the UVF-UDA feud on the Shankill, although it is understood to have loyalist paramilitary connotations. The Progressive Unionist Party blamed "LVF drugs-dealers". Mr Sandy Rice, head of security at a night-club in Bangor, suffered severe lower limb injuries when he took the full force of the bomb, which was planted in the undercarriage of the van, under the driver's section. [continues 598 words]
Over 12 per cent of those who took part in a survey on drug use said they had taken cannabis, while 25 per cent said they knew someone with a drug problem. The survey was carried out by the Drug Misuse Research Division of the Health Research Board and the results are published today. Over 1,000 adults were interviewed for the survey, which took place between February and April 1998. Some 77 per cent said all illegal drugs were equally harmful to health, while over 40 per cent said drug users could become dependent on drugs after just one experience. Half those surveyed said regular use of cannabis was just as dangerous to health as regular use of heroin. [continues 168 words]
The Naval Service chief, Commodore John Kavanagh, has denied there are any proposals to stop drug surveillance off the coast. Commodore Kavanagh, flag officer commanding the Naval Service, told The Irish Times the defence wing fully intended to retain this responsibility as part of its single-agency remit. The retiring Defence Forces chief of staff, Lieut Gen David Stapleton, agreed with him on this, and had been "quoted out of context" recently in relation to the issue, Commodore Kavanagh said. In a recent newspaper interview, Lieut Gen Stapleton was quoted as having asked the Government to phase out some Aid to Civil Powers (ATCP) duties held by the Defence Forces, including Naval Service involvement in drug patrols. However, Commodore Kavanagh said he was satisfied this proposal related only to very limited duties held by the Army, and most ATCP functions would be retained. [continues 424 words]
The Minister for State with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, Mr Eoin Ryan, is reviewing a proposal to introduce injecting rooms for heroin addicts. The proposal was submitted to the National Drugs Strategy Review by the Merchants Quay Project, the State's largest voluntary drugs project, and would involve providing supervised rooms in which drug addicts could inject heroin at cubicles with clean equipment. A spokeswoman for the Minister said they were looking at the proposals submitted and at successful drug services used worldwide. "We are looking at all international best practices," she said. Specifically, the spokeswoman said they were examining injecting rooms as used in Switzerland. [continues 388 words]
The Irish Medicines Board has declined to comment on new research indicating the herb St John's Wort, popular as a remedy for depression, is as effective as conventional drugs and has fewer side effects. A report published in today's British Medical Journal says doctors should prescribe the herb as a "first choice" treatment for patients with mild to moderate depression. On the IMB's recommendation, the Minister for Health banned over the counter sales of St John's Wort from January 1st last, citing concerns about potential side effects. [continues 310 words]
A Dublin gangland figure and kidnapper of Mrs Jennifer Guinness, John Cunningham, was brought to a Dutch court as a witness in a drugs and weapons smuggling trial yesterday. If convicted of charges he himself faces of smuggling drugs and weapons, Cunningham faces between 10 and 15 years in jail, Dutch legal sources said. Cunningham and his alleged accomplices were arrested in Amsterdam on March 10th, when ecstasy and amphetamine ("speed") worth pounds 2 million and a large quantity of arms were seized. [continues 304 words]
COLOMBIA: South American governments expressed "serious concern" in Brasilia yesterday at a $1.3 billion US military aid package for Colombia, at an event originally called to accelerate trade integration but dominated by Colombia's escalating internal conflict. The Brazil summit, attended by all South American presidents, rejected plans for a multinational military force that would intervene in Colombia. "Brazil will not participate in any such international force," said Foreign Minister Mr Luiz Felipe Lampreia, in comments published yesterday, "What's more, Brazil stands firmly against the idea of any foreign military force in Colombia." [continues 297 words]
COLUMBIA: President Clinton promised that the US "is not going to get into a shooting war" as he brought a $1.3 billion aid package for Colombia's anti-drugs war in a swift visit to the port city of Cartagena. There was heavy security for the eight-hour visit. Local police arrested two men said to be preparing a small 2 kg bomb not far from a building that Mr Clinton was due to visit. A police spokesman said the device was designed to "cause panic but not huge damage". [continues 534 words]
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has asked the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) and the Garda to report to him on how 15-year-old Kim O'Donovan went untraced for a month before her death from a drug overdose. The Minister told The Irish Times last night that he was seriously concerned about the gap in time between when Kim went missing from health board care on July 28th and her death in a Dublin guest-house on Thursday. [continues 435 words]
A Scottish-based father of two is to be extradited to Ireland to face drugs charges. Mr James Smith is to be sent back to Ireland to go on trial accused of operating a cannabis factory. He has allegedly been on the run for more than three years after jumping pounds 10,000 bail in 1997. He was arrested at a railway station in the Perthshire village of Dunkeld on Thursday night. Mr Smith (38), of Tayside Place, Aberfeldy, fled from Ireland when he was due to go on trial on drug charges at Wicklow District Court. He was granted bail and gave more than pounds 10,000 cash as a bond, but left the money behind and went into hiding. [continues 258 words]
A 15-year-old girl who died of a suspected drugs overdose in a Dublin guesthouse yesterday had been missing from health board residential care since the end of last month, it emerged last night. The girl had been in the care of the South Western Area Health Board, part of the former Eastern Health Board region. A spokeswoman for the health board said that when care staff went to collect her from a workplace where she was on work experience on July 28th she could not be found. [continues 401 words]
A 15-year-old girl with a record of drug abuse and absconding has been kept until now by the Mid Western Health Board in a "totally unsuitable" unit for boys, the High Court has heard. Mr Justice Herbert was told that the boys' unit was due to close within hours of an application being made in court yesterday, and there would be nowhere or no one to look after the girl over the weekend. The Co Limerick girl's situation was outlined to the court by Ms Elva Kearney, counsel for the health board. [continues 157 words]
Drug Abuse Is More Prevalent Among Young People In Dublin Than In Many Other European Cities, Writes Padraig O'morain, Health And Children Correspondent ( Pomorain@Irish-times.ie) Sources familiar with the background of Kim O'Donovan deny she was a drug addict. Nevertheless, the fact that she appears to have died of an overdose of drugs has focused attention on the needs of young people experimenting with drugs. To see her life in the context of drugs would clearly be inaccurate and unfair. The fact remains, however, that the idea of using drugs and her access to drugs occurred in one of Europe's worst cities for drug abuse among young people. [continues 393 words]
The death of a 15-year-old girl from a suspected drugs overdose in Dublin has led to calls for the immediate setting up of specialist treatment services for young people who experiment with drugs. A source familiar with the dead girl's history expressed the view that she was not a drug addict. However, those working on drug projects in the city said young people experimenting with drugs were more likely to overdose because of their inexperience. Father Peter McVerry called last night for specialist treatment services for young people who use drugs and for changes in the law to facilitate the treatment of under-age persons without their parents' consent in certain circumstances. [continues 504 words]
The limited range of drug treatment services available for young people has been criticised since the death of Kim O'Donovan, the 15-year-old girl who died from a suspected overdose in Dublin. Critics say there are gaps in the services, with most drug treatment facilities geared towards adults rather than teenagers. Health boards across the State differ in the level of services provided for this younger age group. Two in particular, the North Western and Western Health Boards, have said alcohol is the major form of addiction in their areas, and while addiction counsellors and youth support workers are available to help teenagers and design rehabilitation programmes to meet their individual needs, there are no dedicated residential treatment centres available. [continues 400 words]
When a tragedy such as the death of 15 year-old Kim O'Donovan occurs, it is natural to look for someone to blame. When it emerges that the child has been in residential care, the spotlight immediately turns on the health board concerned. People naturally ask if this could have been prevented if various services had been in place or had behaved differently. Yet children run away from residential care centres every week. By and large they are troubled children and, in many cases, they do not want to be in care. It is doubtful if there is a residential care centre in the State which is so amply staffed that it can go and look for children who abscond. The most they can do is rely on the efforts of the Garda or hope the child will make contact with relatives or with another service and can be brought back. [continues 384 words]
As President Clinton prepares to visit Bogota in the middle of next week Ana Carrigan raises doubts about his mission and asks disturbing questions concerning the real US agenda COLOMBIA: Three weeks ago, President Clinton interrupted a family holiday to announce that he would travel to Colombia on Wednesday next to meet President Andres Pastr ana. His visit, he claimed, would "underscore America's support for Colombia's efforts to seek peace, fight illicit drugs, build its economy and deepen democracy". [continues 1106 words]
A new initiative to help recovering north Dublin drug addicts obtain employment has been commended by the Minister of State for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Mr Eoin Ryan. The Labour Inclusion Programme will initially run as a two-year pilot scheme catering for 20 recovering addicts. A range of bodies including ICTU, IBEC, Northside Partnership, the Local Drugs Task Force, Citywide and community and voluntary service providers will work together on the programme. Mr Ryan said he had no hesitation in recommending the scheme to Government. "The new programme could be described as the final stage of a process which will see people move from treatment towards full reintegration into society." [continues 246 words]
Father Brendan Forde' decision to stay in Colombia is not a very Celtic Tiger thing to do. He has decided to remain where six men were massacred on July 8th, and where the rest of the community has been told by paramilitaries to get out or meet a similar fate. He is doing so simply because the people there have asked him to, and he believes that his presence, if it succeeds in mobilizing public support in Ireland, may provide some hope of safety for them. [continues 1018 words]
The Criminal Assets Bureau has seized a 19th-century mansion, its contents and an adjoining island near Sneem on the Ring of Kerry which are estimated to be worth pounds 2.5 million. The six-bedroom mansion, adjoining gate lodge and island belonged to an international drug dealer, Jan Hendrik Ijpelaar (53), from the Netherlands. [continues 414 words]
Sir - It is unfortunate that your Health and Children Correspondent, Padraig O'Morain, relied almost exclusively on the press release of the Irish Prisons Service when reporting on our survey of hepatitis B and C and HIV in Irish prisoners (The Irish Times, July 27th). Prison management is sceptical of our finding that approximately one fifth of prisoners who inject began doing so in prison. The reason for this scepticism is the known propensity of prisoners to blame their health troubles on the authorities rather than themselves. [continues 96 words]
When Patrick - not his real name - appeared in court accused of stealing bottles of butane gas, his father told the judge that he had been admitted to Sligo general hospital 46 times suffering from gas inhalation. He was not yet 18. His father, John - also not his real name - said that over the seven years of his son's addiction his parents had tried to get suitable treatment for him, but none was available in the North Western Health Board region. Eventually he found the Aisling addiction centre in Kilkenny, and his son was admitted there, paid for by the NWHB. "It was great, but he was not in long enough," he said. [continues 550 words]
The risk of drug usage by young people is higher during summer, the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has warned. The society yesterday launched a new drugs awareness initiative based at drop-in centres for children. Ms Caroline O'Sullivan, the ISPCC's assistant director of services, said surveys carried out by the organisation had repeatedly shown that young people identified alcohol, drugs and tobacco as the greatest problems they face. "We would urge parents to be especially vigilant of their children over the summer months as there are more people about and drugs become more widely available. The children are more at risk of dabbling in drugs because they are out of school, out of their usual structured activities and are not as closely supervised," Ms O'Sullivan added. [continues 314 words]
Gardai in Waterford have denied claims by residents and a local councillor that the city is a "soft touch" for drugs barons and that illegal drugs are widely available in city housing estates. Mr John Halligan, of the Workers' Party, claims drugs are being supplied to the city by major dealers from Cork and Dublin who know that gardai do not have the resources to tackle the problem. Gardai claim Mr Halligan, a member of Waterford City Council, is engaged in publicity-seeking and that their drugs detection record is among the best in the State. [continues 675 words]
Police in Birmingham are to investigate a possible link between heroin-related deaths in the city and recent similar deaths in the Republic and in Scotland. Two young drug-users have died within 24 hours in the city and a third is critically ill. Two new cases affecting two women were also confirmed by the Greater Glasgow Health Authority yesterday. One of them died in hospital in Glasgow early yesterday. West Midlands police have warned drug users in the Birmingham area about the possibility of a "poor-quality batch of heroin in circulation". The Birmingham health service has also put its casualty departments on alert for drug users with unusual symptoms. [continues 405 words]
Parents have been warned to be alert to the dangers of ecstasy, following the death of a 17-year-old girl. Alison Davis from Bray died last Saturday after taking an ecstasy tablet. The Minister with responsibility for the drugs strategy, Mr Eoin Ryan, expressed his sympathy for the Davis family and said he couldn't imagine the devastation they were going through. "It's a tragic situation for the family," he said, adding there were very strong concerns about the widespread availability of drugs such as ecstasy. [continues 284 words]
The number of drug-users presenting at one of Dublin's largest drug-treatment centres increased by almost a third last year, as compared with 1998, according to a report to be published today. The Merchant's Quay Project annual report also reports an increase in the number of young drug-users sleeping rough and the number of new young injectors. The open access service at the project saw a 28 per cent increase in client visits - a total of 33,090 visits, or 138 per day - last year. [continues 270 words]
Government policies on reducing the demand for drugs have not failed and future policies will embrace a wider range of treatment options, the chairman of the National Drugs Strategy Review has said. The Minister of State, Mr Eoin Ryan, was reacting to the annual report from the State's largest voluntary drug treatment centre. Published yesterday, the Merchant's Quay report says there was a 28 per cent rise in the number of new drug addicts presenting for treatment. It saw 650 new clients in 1999. [continues 306 words]
The annual report for 1999 of the 10-year-old Merchant's Quay Project - set up to try to grapple with the growing problem of drug addiction in Dublin - provides a useful snapshot of the current state of play in the war against heroin in our capital city. It leaves no room for the Government to become complacent about its anti-drug policies, revealing as it does, an increase in drug deaths in the city during the year under review, and an increase of almost one third in the number of client visits to the organisation's open-access services. [continues 508 words]
Homelessness, a hostile treatment programme and prostitution all make recovery from heroin addiction even harder than it already is. Members of a new lobby group for former drug users talk to Kitty Holland "Asking an addict what his opinion was about treatment - about anything in fact - would be like a dog asking the fleas on his back what they thought of fur. That might sound a bit rough, but that's the truth of it," says Tommy Larkin. "That's what most addicts believe the world thinks of them, so most wouldn't think there was any point in even trying to have a voice. Who'd listen to fleas?" [continues 1526 words]
The rescinding of the Public Order Act to allow anti-drugs marches and reform of the Garda Complaints Board are among the measures recommended in a policy document from one of the State's largest anti-drugs organisations. "Facing The Future: Policy 2000", published by the Coalition Of Communities Against Drugs (COCAD), was launched in Dublin last night by Minister of State Mr Eoin Ryan, who is chairman of the National Drugs Strategy. Founded in 1996, COCAD is an umbrella organisation of community-based, anti-drugs groups. [continues 264 words]
The review of the Government's policy on drug abuse will result in a new strategy by the end of the year, writes Eoin Ryan There are no simple solutions to the drug problem. However, this has not prevented some groups and individuals from simplifying the issues involved in order to get their particular views across. For that reason, constructive and informed debate is not only welcome but essential. We are currently reviewing our National Drugs Strategy and this has afforded an opportunity for a wide-ranging public debate on our drugs policy. The review will identify gaps and deficiencies in that policy, the aim being to put a comprehensive new strategy in place by the end of the year. [continues 607 words]
American actor Woody Harrelson yesterday brought his campaign to legalise cannabis to Ireland. The Texan actor, known for his controversial role in Natural Born Killers, was speaking at the Galway Film Fleadh. Mr Harrelson has narrated Grass, a documentary chronicling 50 years of US government anti-cannabis policy, which is being shown at the fleadh. The actor didn't choose to be a campaigner for legalising cannabis, he said. "It chose me because my friends went to jail over it. That's when I started speaking about it." [continues 102 words]
