I have been very clear throughout my entire career that decriminalization may be one aspect of helping people who use substances, but there needs to be many components to reducing harm related to substance use. In fact, I was the author of the Thunder Bay drug strategy, which has five pillars of action. None of them individually will save lives. We need multiple actions on multiple fronts, which is why this government has invested so much money in substance use and harm reduction to restore some aspects that were severely damaged under the previous government.
