Ms Niamh Eastwood:

I am not sure there is very clear evidence in respect of sanctions. Professor Stevens would know way more about this than I would. If we regard drug dependency as fundamentally a health issue, then why are we punishing people with sanctions? I keep coming back to that issue. We all recognise drug dependency and we recognise that most people do not have dependency issues. If they do not have dependency issues, why are we putting an extra burden on the State in managing sanctions? Those are more technical and philosophical questions. I do not think there is massive evidence on which sanctions achieve what.

In terms of the discretionary nature and the idea of having an escalated approach, as we have mentioned a number of times, the problem is that we will continue to get over-policing of communities. This comes back to the point I made earlier about fear of accessing services. If police are still primarily responsible for enforcement, even in respect of these civil approaches, some people will remain unwilling to come forward for emergency help or for treatment for fear of being detected. This does not resolve that problem in the way decriminalisation clearly can.