Submissions to the Drug Summit- Have your say!

From 4 October 2024, NSW community members are encouraged to input into the Drug Summit by sharing their experiences, concerns and suggested solutions through the NSW Government’s Have Your Say platform.

This will be in lieu of a formal submission process- which means you can have your say very quickly!

The Focus Areas of the Summit

Health promotion and wellbeing
Equity, respect and inclusion
Safety and Justice
Keeping young people safe and supporting families
integrated support and social services

What should you write?

What you should write should be personal to you- and what you care about. If you have a story to tell about the harms of the current drug laws- write about that!

Actionable Recommendations

When it comes to submissions of this nature- writing about the issue simply isn’t enough. Oftentimes policy makers already know what the issues are- but what you need to do, is suggest solutions.

Now, this feels like an overwhelming task to the issues of the world, but when it comes to our campaign, you can point to a few things.

We have collated some potential solutions to some of the key overarching issues within our community- as well as implementable solutions for the government to consider.

How can we improve health promotion to reduce drug harms?

We need more supervised injecting facilities -but currently, the law in NSW is that there can only be one. We can make this happen by:

Amending section 36A of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 to allow more than one license to be issued for more than one premises.

We need further overdose prevention under the looming threat of nitazenes. We can do this by:

Implementing fixed site and mobile drug education and checking services

What could improve equitable access and inclusion for people seeking support for drug use?

We need to address known gaps in treatment services to priority populations, including in rural and regional areas, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, mothers with children, and young people. We can do this by:

Undertaking a survey of community need to identify areas of unmet need
Implement significant funding increases

How can NSW ensure the community is safe, and its law enforcement response to drug use is fair, proportionate and effective?

Our campaign aim is for people who use drugs to receive a health and wellbeing response to their drug use and dependency. To make this happen – there’s a few things you could point to:

The Decriminalisation of Drugs for Personal Use
Reworking of the current Diversion Scheme, known as EDDI

Whilst our campaign prioritises decriminalisation as a campaign goal, having alternatives to fall back on, including improved diversion schemes, keeps our options open for potential changes.

What can be done to help keep young people safe and support families?

You can split this into two portions- as these are two separate questions.

To keep young people safe, we would recommend:

Implementing fixed site and mobile drug education and checking services
The decriminalisation of drugs for personal use

When it comes to supporting families, we can bring together multiple recommendations, including:

An increase to treatment funding, specifically for parents with children

How can we ensure that integrated support and social services are available and working effectively?

We also know that our services, including across mental health and AOD, don’t often work the most harmoniously- we need to break down the silos by:

Introducing a whole of government AOD strategy

What are the top 3 issues that need to be addressed?

Within our campaign, we have three priority issues.

A health and wellbeing based response to people who use drugs- and for us, this is drug decriminalisation.
A significant increase to treatment funding- including that of harm reduction
A disruption of the stigma in place towards people who use drugs.

Go to the NSW Government Website

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