Ireland Accidentally Legalizes Crystal Meth

You've got to figure Ireland didn't see this one coming. On Tuesday morning, some positively bizarre headlines began flying around, proclaiming that Ireland had legalized crystal meth and ecstasy, if only for one day — basically, the sort of thing that national governments (the ones with any kind of comprehensive drug prohibition, at least) tend to be pretty loathe to do. And it's true, though altogether inadvertent. So if you're looking to burn yourself out on a caustic, addictive drug like meth, and you're within shouting distance of the Emerald Isle, you're in luck! (But really, don't do that.)

Here's what happened, as detailed by Irish newspaper The Journal — on Tuesday, a ruling was handed down by the Irish Court of Appeal that abolished a raft of drug prohibitions, specifically those laid out in the 1977 Misuse of Drugs Acts. The law was found unconstitutional, rendering it no longer valid. Which is basically just another way of saying, hey, ketamine is legal in Ireland now.

As you might expect, this isn't an outcome the Irish government finds particularly welcome, so they're fast-tracking a new emergency replacement law to outlaw the drugs once more. But that can't happen for a little while, yet — it won't be until midnight Thursday local time that the new emergency law will take effect, meaning the crystal meth aficionados of Ireland can now suck chemicals in peace.

To be clear, this doesn't mean that all of Ireland's illegal drugs are now fair game, an important point noted by The Journal. It only applies to the drugs that were outlawed by that specific law, which means a slew of high-profile intoxicants are still every bit as illegal in Ireland now as they were prior to the ruling — marijuana, cocaine and heroin among them.

It speaks volumes about the dim appetite for drug legalization in Ireland that things are moving along as briskly as they are. If you're the sort of person who believes society might be better off without such criminal penalties, the swiftness with which this loophole is going to be tied off is probably disheartening. But ultimately, it kind of has to go down this way — whether or not a government might be open to legalizing particular drugs, for one reason or another, no country would tolerate their prohibitions crumbling quite this unexpectedly and haphazardly.

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