I'm working on a project that will, among other things, involve a dissection of the infamous "Drug'ail Saor" tattoo, and include possible alternatives for someone who wants to say "Drug-free."

I'd think that "saor ó dhrugaí" would be the most literal way to handle it (though it sounds kind of Béarlachasach to me). I suppose one could also say "Gan drugaí" or "Drugaí ar bith" if you wanted to rephrased it as "no drugs."

If someone wanted to indicate that he or she had given up drugs, could that be worded something like "éirithe as na drugaí?" "Scaoilte ó dhrugaí?" Any suggestions would help!

GRMA!

Redwolf

In De Bhaldraithe's dictionary, he agrees with both of your first two suggestions, giving these examples under "free", but it looks as though saor would work best in your context:

saor ó rud
free from something

saor ó dhleacht
free from duty

bheith gan cúram
to be free from care

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Is there a semantic difference between a state of freedom say, of someone who has never taken drugs and one that is now free from substance influence?

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Well, there are the straight-edge people who are very proud of simply never using such substances. Then there are the people who are celebrating that they've been able to quit. So I'd say that there is likely a difference. In English, the difference I'd think of is "drug-free" for the first and "freed from drugs" for the second.

Redwolf