Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I know I am coming in hard, but the Minister of State must remember that I do not visit a treatment centre and ask people if they support legalisation. What I do is I ask my friends if they think they are criminals. If I ask the father of my child if he is a criminal for his drug use, he will say "No". I do not ask people if they think drugs should be legalised. We have to be careful about the questions we ask. People who have grown up in poverty and addiction have internalised the stigma the Minister of State speaks about. They feel they should be legalised, but because we buy into the moral panic, we do not talk to them about the conditions of the environment in which they live and grow up or why they have to self-medicate to that extent. There is a difference between drug use and drug abuse. Drug abuse is connected with poverty and inequality. Unless we can address that we cannot keep having these pretend conversations at committees where we make big statements such as "the war on drugs is not an effective response", and then have a meeting that is in complete contradiction to that statement.

The Minister of State should withdraw that sentence from the statement he gave to the committee today.