Ms Niamh Eastwood:

While I do not think this is what Deputy Hourigan was doing, people often will set it up as decriminalisation or legalisation. There must be a spectrum within the policy goals. For example, Canada has regulated cannabis but it still criminalises people for possession of cannabis outside of the legal market.

On potency, Portugal amended its laws last year. It brought fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into the decriminalised model. It also abolished thresholds, which is something we may want to pick up on in other discussions. I support a regulated market, which is how we can reduce some of the harm from potency in synthetics and new drugs of harm coming into our countries. We have tools within the medical regulated sphere for prescribing diamorphine. We have a number of clients in the UK who are still on take-home diamorphine and who get really good outcomes. I would be happy to talk about that in more detail.