The War on Drugs has been an epic and obscenely expensive policy failure. Waged for more than 60 years, countless billions of dollars of public money has been spent on trying to stop the flow of drugs through borders along with zero-tolerance policing policies that target and prosecute people who use drugs.
This hasn’t stopped people from using drugs. In fact, roughly every second person over 16 in this country has tried an illegal drug at some point in their lives. But it has clogged our courts with minor drug possession cases while people who need treatment are being sent to prison or just not able to access the health services they need.
Removing criminal penalties for drug use and for possessing small amounts of illegal drugs will free up police and court resources to better help people who are victims of actual crimes, and enable more treatment services for people who are experiencing addiction. It’s what they’ve done in Portugal and it works.
Decriminalising all drugs was a key recommendation from the Special Commission of Inquiry into ‘Ice’ AND the Coronial Inquest into the Deaths of Six Patrons at Music Festivals. That was four years ago.
The NSW Government held the final days of its drug summit in December to guide the government on what actions it will take to reduce the harm from drugs and all the experts agreed: to save lives the war on drugs must end.
The single most powerful thing that will make the biggest difference is to stop treating drug use as a crime.
It’s time. Drug Use Should Not be a Crime.
Email key MPs now.
Our other priorities at the Drug Summit
These were our top asks for the Government that will reduce the harm from drugs and save lives:
- Remove criminal penalties for possession or use of drugs
- Reform the Early Drug Diversion Initiative so that the criteria for eligibility and police discretion are removed, ensuring all people caught in possession of drugs are diverted toward the health system and away from the courts.
- Tax and regulate cannabis
- End sniffer dogs and strip searches
- Allow pill testing at fixed and on-site locations
- Reform drug driving laws for medicinal cannabis patients
- Increase the number of specialist drug treatment services, including detox facilities and medically supervised injecting centres in regional and remote NSW
- Repeal the ‘deemed supply’ provision so that someone caught with a certain quantity of illicit drugs is not automatically deemed to be supplying it
- Wipe all non-indictable offences and criminal records for drug use and possession
- Implement all of the recommendations of the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug Ice and the Inquest into deaths at NSW music festivals by the end of 2023.