Senior police and politicians have heard home truths about drugs at a long-awaited summit that advocates hope will deliver health-focused reforms after earlier inquiries failed to deliver meaningful change.
But there appears to be little appetite within government for any major policy shift after the long-promised NSW Drug Summit, which has begun in the regional city of Griffith ahead of sessions in Lismore and Sydney.
Fear of discrimination and judgment played key roles in people not seeking help for drug misuse in the regions, the summit heard on Friday.
A Labor election promise, the summit aims to build consensus and social licence for major drug reforms – modelled on a week-long forum in 1999 that was the impetus for Australia’s first supervised injecting room.
People with lived experience and frontline workers had frank discussions behind closed doors with four cabinet ministers, police chiefs and other key decision-makers.
“(They) talked about the particular kind of stigma experienced by people using drugs in rural and regional areas – with fear of discrimination and judgement playing a key part in people not seeking help in the first instance,” Uniting NSW/ACT advocacy manager Emma Maiden said.
“The ability to have a person-centred health and welfare response has been called out as something that is urgently needed.”
Health Minister Ryan Park earlier pressed attendees to have challenging conversations.
“Be willing to challenge your own thoughts, be willing to challenge your own assumptions,” he told people from nearly 50 organisations.
“By doing that, you may be opening yourself up to an improved way in which we navigate this difficult public policy area.”
Advocates say the once-in-a-generation drug summit is a golden opportunity for NSW to “get with the times” and save lives.
Improved funding of addiction services, changes to policing and serious consideration of community drug-checking are among their desired outcomes.
Drug-checking is to be rolled out in Victoria this summer, following similar moves in Queensland and the ACT.
Plenty of Australians used drugs recreationally without incident, NSW Users and AIDS Association chair Andrew Heslop said.
When addiction problems occur, peer-led harm minimisation programs “really do save (and) change lives”, he told AAP.
“I would really like to see a focus … on a health-based approach and stop using the punitive criminal justice system which just keeps people under thumb,” he said.
Unharm campaign manager Sam Kidd said he hoped it would not become “the ice inquiry 2.0” after hopes in 2020 to revamp the state response to methamphetamine use were met with little action.
“There are many areas where the laws are out of step with community expectation,” he said.
About 10 million Australians aged 14 years and over have illicitly used a drug at some point in their lifetime, with about four million doing so in the past year.
Small moves to boost harm minimisation programs and introduce a drug court diversion scheme have been made, but calls for larger reforms have been dismissed.
Premier Chris Minns has previously hosed down suggestions that cannabis should be decriminalised for personal use, or that NSW would follow other states and territories in introducing pill-testing regimes.
The government on Friday pledged $9.84 million for alcohol and other drugs services in the Griffith area including post-custodial support programs, and community-based withdrawal management and counselling for vulnerable people.
Further announcements for other regional NSW services are expected in coming days.
Nine MPs attended the Griffith hearing including ministers Rose Jackson, Jo Haylen and Yasmin Catley.
About two-in-five state MPs have said they will attend the Sydney sessions in December.
Former NSW Labor deputy premier Carmel Tebbutt and former state Liberal leader John Brogden co-chair the event.
