Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 24 October 2017.
Well, there are already regular meetings that take place between the police and crime commissioners and Ministers in any event. It is absolutely right to say that there is very little point, nor would it be right, to see substance misuse as something that is a crime. There are people who have medical issues; the suppliers are different. But those people, of course, who are in a position where they misuse substances, the intervention for them has to be medical. And that means working with the police—that’s true; it’s what the substance misuse strategy is designed to do. She herself said we’re waiting for the Welsh figures, and we want to make sure those Welsh figures show that we are seeing a positive effect on substance misuse. But the challenge is always there: how do you deal with new drugs that appear, all the time, synthesised originally from drugs that didn’t exist in 1971? She’s right to mention heroin—right to mention heroin. But it’s hugely important that we work with the police and crime commissioners, as we do, and that we develop and give our substance misuse strategy the time to develop, and in that way I believe we will help more and more people to get off the substances they become addicted to.