Mr. Kellen Russoniello:

Yes, ideally, that is what we would want. We want systems in place that are able to respond to the needs of people and then we can move forward with decriminalisation. On the other hand, decriminalisation in itself is a form of harm reduction in that it reduces the harms of arresting and incarcerating people, which decades of evidence show is harmful not only for individuals but for communities as well. Especially in the United States, we were wary of waiting for that system to be set up because we have been waiting for it to be set up for decades. If we continue to say we are just going to wait until we have a perfect behavioural healthcare system that responds to everybody's needs, we will never have decriminalisation. We have to balance the need to move forward with decriminalisation with the need to provide all the services required by both those who use drugs and others in the community.