This concise, practical text, written by one of Ireland's leading criminal barristers, deals with all the key areas of drugs law including sentencing, possession, importation, stop and search, search warrants, entrapment, evidence and defences.

New to the second edition:
* The chapter on possession has been largely rewritten to take account of changes in the case law since 2010.
* The book has been updated to reflect the changes to the law brought about by the Customs Act 2015 and the Communications Regulation (Postal Services) Act 2011.
* The chapter on cultivation has been expanded since the first edition. This area of law has become much more significant since 2010. There have been a lot more cases of the grow house category being processed by the courts, although the law itself has not changed significantly. These cases tend to be relevant in the context of sentencing.
* The second edition contains the following new chapter: Powers for Investigating Drugs Offences.
* The section dealing with adverse inference questioning has been thoroughly rewritten and contextualised it to focus on drugs offences. There have been a number of important decisions from the Irish courts relating to these provisions within the past 10 years (and the author appeared in some of those cases).
* The entrapment procedures material has been revised to take account of a number of significant decisions in recent years.
* Ch 18 on Defences has been revised in light of the Smyth decision in 2010, which related to the burden on the accused.
* Sentencing is one of the most important aspects of drugs law and this material has been brought up to date. Of particular significance is the addition of a section on grow houses and cultivation.

New legislation and cases that are dealt with in this edition:
* Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2017
* Customs Act 2015
* Communications Regulation (Postal Services) Act 2011
* DPP v Smyth [2010] 3 IR 368
* DPP v JC [2015] IESC 31

This title is included in Bloomsbury Professional's Irish Criminal Law online service.