What is Crainn?
Crainn is Ireland’s largest cannabis community with over 40,000 members across the network. Our mission is to provide sensible drug policy solutions to policy makers, public health officials and other key stakeholders involved in the implementation of Ireland’s National Drug Strategy..
Our Pillars
Harm Reduction
Irish drug policy should be built on an ethos of harm reduction. Harm reduction is a set of principles that guides drug policy in the direction of causing the least harm as possible. A key element of this is the immediate end to the criminalisation of drug use and the regulation of cannabis.
Education
Every year, Crainn takes to the streets of Ireland to discuss drugs, drug policy and cannabis regulation with members of the public. Most recently, Crainn spoke to members of the public on the Citizens’ Assembly.
Community
We want to give our community the best representation possible. We want everyone to have their voice heard on this topic.
More on Crainn
Crainn is a voluntary group which aims to push for legislative and policy change to Ireland’s current drug strategy. Established in 2021 with almost 40,000 community members across our platforms, we engage with relevant Government Departments, public representatives, public bodies and other stakeholders regularly.
Our mission thus far has been to push for a much broader and holistic focus relating to drugs from government, focusing on three primary areas: Education, Harm-Reduction and Community.
A core focus of our campaign involves the legalisation and regulation cannabis from a public health perspective.
Based on the latest European, Irish and global data, the shift from prohibition toward regulation appears more and more effective in reducing drug-related harms.
Our work thus far has involved a number of in person public ‘information days’ on drug policy, representation at the Oireachtas Committee on Justice in which we presented evidence on the topic of legalisation, multiple local, national and international media appearances, public debates in Universities across the country, and most recently, a presentation of evidence to the historic Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use.
Oireachtas Justice Committee
In 2022, the Oireachtas’ committee shadowing the Department of Justice chaired by Fianna Fáil TD James Lawless held a hearing to examine Ireland’s current drug strategy.
As part of their examination, a number of groups were invited to make both written and oral testimony to committee members, which is made up of a number of TDs and Senators from across all political parties.
This recent report, influenced by local, national and international evidence found quite clearly that the present approach to drug use is currently causing more harm than good.
The report, supported on a cross party basis found that large-scale criminalisation of drug use is counter-productive and that legalisation/regulation of certain drugs (such as cannabis) should be seriously considered by Government.
Cross-party consensus currently exists now on a brand new, radical re-working of Ireland’s drug policy.
Crainn took part in the public hearing of the Committee’s examination, and many of our recommendations made their way into the final report.
The full Oireachtas report can be read here.
Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use
Within the current Programme for Government it was clearly stated that the establishment of a Citizens’ Assembly examining drug policy would take place over the course of this Government’s term. This process began in early 2023, and is due to finish its proceedings this October.
The Citizens’ Assembly involves 99 random members of society being tasked with examining an often complex topic in detail over the course of several months leading to a vote at the end which will make up the Assembly’s recommendations to Government.
The Citizens’ Assembly in the past has brought about substantial societal change within Ireland, including in areas such as same-sex marriage, abortion and gender equality. With drugs, we believe similar paradigm-shifting changes taking place following the Assembly.
In September, Crainn was invited to make an oral presentation to the 99 members which included a focus on cannabis regulation.
The presentation can be watched here.
Crainn 
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