My reason for wanting to change our drug laws is because a criminal conviction for a low level drug offence can have an impact on people for the rest of their life, and stigmatising people can prevent them from seeking the help they need. I’ve seen the first-hand impacts of our unjust laws in my own whānau and community. Addiction is an illness that is prevalent in my whakapapa and so we have seen the pain and reduced life opportunities across many generations. Breaking the cycle of harm in our communities requires us to be radical in our thinking; by removing criminal penalties for all drugs, massively increasing funding for treatment services and ensuring that our responses are underpinned by holistic kaupapa Māori values.