Professor Alex Stevens:

We need to decouple these issues. We should not make decriminalisation conditional on there being an adequate treatment system. Decriminalisation reduces the criminalisation of people who use drugs and, therefore, the harms and costs imposed by that. It cannot on its own increase the capacity of the treatment system but it does not increase harms even if we do not have the treatment system. Whether Ireland or any other country should boost the resources it places on the treatment system is a separate question from whether it should decriminalise. Decriminalising reduces harms and costs. It does not increase use and treatment demand on its own. Those are two separate questions and decriminalisation should not be conditional on the capacity of the treatment system.