In short:
The NSW government has confirmed that its promised drug summit will commence this year.
This the first drug summit in the state since 1999.
The summit will take place over four days, beginning with two days in regional NSW in October then two days in Sydney over December.
A second drug summit will be held in New South Wales at the end of the year, the state government has confirmed.
The summit is scheduled to be held over a collective four days, beginning with two days of regional forums from October.
The second half of the drug summit will be held on December 4 and 5 in Sydney.
The confirmation comes after months of uncertainty of when the state government would announce the summit.
NSW Premier Chris Minns committed to holding a drug summit during the 2023 election.
“We know that drug use impacts individuals, families and communities in many different ways. The drug summit will bring people together to find new ways forward to tackle this incredibly complex and difficult problem,” Mr Minns said.
‘An important conversation’
Health Minister Ryan Park said the drug summit would include a number of viewpoints on drug use, those in health and non-health contexts and those who have interacted with illicit drug use.
“This is an important conversation for us to have and it will be the first of its kind in a quarter century,” Mr Park said.
NSW’s first drug summit was held in 1999 by then-premier Bob Carr in the wake of record opioid-related deaths in the state.
One of the outcomes that followed the summit was Sydney’s Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC), the first supervised drug consumption facility in Australia.
Confirmation welcomed by NSW harm reduction workers
Today’s announcement was welcomed by the state’s alcohol and other drug workers.
Robert Stirling, the CEO of the Network of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies (NADA), saw this confirmation of the summit as a step forward, given the lack of a government plan for harm reduction in over a decade.
“It’s time for NSW to move on from punitive approaches to drug policy and focus instead on removing barriers to treatment and ensuring support services are adequately funded,” Dr Stirling said.
Emma Maiden, the general manager of advocacy and external relations at Uniting NSW/ACT, which oversees MSIC, she hoped the summit would result in the expansion of safe injecting facilities, drug checking services and more drug diversion and support programs.
Others have also made calls for an expansion of drug checking services, following the rise of entirely synthetic, and incredibly potent, drugs being detected in Australia.
“What we would like to see is not a criminal justice response when someone is caught with a small amount of drugs, but a health welfare response. And that person is connected with education, and other health and rehabilitation services if they seek it,” she said.
Matt Noffs, the CEO of the Ted Noffs Foundation, commended the government’s focus on regional communities.
“For the first time in a long time, we’ve got a government that’s listened on this issue,” he said.
Mr Noffs said he believed the key focus of the summit was providing support to young people using methamphetamine in regional areas.
“Those regional areas are really struggling and they’ve got the least amount of resources.
“If you’re going to ask me what the top thing is: youth crime, methamphetamine, regional areas. That’s the top issue.”
Need for action
Ms Maiden said she felt what we’re seeing now was a “real commitment to the kind of transformational conversation that happened back in 1999” by the NSW government.
“I think, because the government seems to be very focused on learning as much … As possible, I am hopeful that we can do more than talk, but actually see a building of consensus across all the political parties so that we can have reforms to our drug laws.”
Pointing to the 2020 Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug ‘Ice’ report and the government’s response, Mr Noffs said the difference was that this summit can be a moment for meaningful change.
“This is a time for action,” Mr Noffs said.
“What separates this from the ice commission is you had hearing after hearing after hearing, you had panels, experts, police, family community, and you had someone who heard all of those and put the recommendations forward,” he said.
“The thing that needs to set the summit apart from that is it is a time for action.”
In line with the drug summit, the NSW government also announced that 12 not-for-profit organisations will collectively receive $33.9 million over four years to deliver alcohol and drug support services.
The government said this funding is part of its response to the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug ‘Ice’.
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