This headline is plain wrong. Ireland isn't about to do this. The news is that our drugs minister is talking about it in the media, and talking about the need for the next government to talk about it. A conversation has started, that's all.
You'd want to be careful with that, Stefan Zweig has a novella about a guy playing chess against himself in his head who loses his mind! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royal_Game