‘Demonstrate leadership’: Labor under pressure to respond to drug summit

4 days ago 3

The Minns government is being urged to move faster on overhauling drug policy in NSW, with MPs from across the political spectrum backing cannabis law reform and peak welfare groups calling for Labor to implement recommendations from the NSW 2024 Drug Summit.

After last week’s budget failed to include funding aimed at addressing the 56 recommendations from the summit, a coalition of peak services including NCOSS and the Wayside Chapel have urged Labor to “demonstrate leadership” and push ahead with drug reform.

The Sydney portion of the 2024 Drug Summit was held at the International Convention Centre in December.

“The families and communities impacted by this issue across NSW have waited too long for change,” the joint statement, which was also signed by Uniting, the Salvation Army, Wesley Mission and the St Vincent de Paul Society read.

“We see the ongoing impact that stigma has on people who use drugs and experience drug dependency and the difficulty in accessing support.”

It has been almost three months since the co-chairs of the drug summit, Carmel Tebbutt and John Brogden, handed the government its final report including 56 recommendations, among them calls for Labor to “significantly increase” funding for drug and alcohol services.

While the summit stopped short of recommending decriminalisation, it called for changes ranging from the introduction of a medical defence for driving while using medically prescribed cannabis, to cutting penalties for minor drug possession.

The government has yet to respond to the summit’s recommendations, but in a statement, Health Minister Ryan Park said it would do so “in the next six months as requested by the co-chairs”. Park said the government had moved to introduce a pill testing trial in the interim, and that it had announced a $235 million package for drug and alcohol services before the summit.

“The funding is focused on meeting the unique needs of priority population groups including Aboriginal people, pregnant women, people with mental health conditions, young people and people involved in the criminal justice system,” he said.

But the government is under increasing pressure to move faster. Earlier this month, a parliamentary inquiry led by Legalise Cannabis MP Jeremy Buckingham released a report into laws regulating cannabis use, which recommended a pathway to eventually considering legalisation.

The report called for the decriminalisation of personal use and possession of cannabis, followed by “a staged process of reform and review” to “consider legislating to legalise the use of cannabis by adults in a manner that eliminates the illicit market so far as is possible and creates a safe, regulated and accessible statewide market for legal cannabis”.

Labor MP Stephen Lawrence and Premier Chris Minns.

The report is significant because it was backed by government and Coalition MPs. Among them was Stephen Lawrence, an upper house Labor MP who told the Herald “the case for at least decriminalisation I think is overwhelming”.

Lawrence said the evidence was “unanimous that the existing laws are causing great harm”, and the committee’s report was “an important tripartisan moment in the journey to rational drug laws in NSW”.