‘Even more urgent’: Inaction on ice inquiry costing lives as treatment demand spikes

Australia’s peak medical groups have warned that the NSW government’s failure to respond to the state’s ice inquiry will have catastrophic consequences as drug and alcohol treatment services struggle to cope with surging demand in the wake of the pandemic.

In May, the commissioner who led the inquiry, Professor Dan Howard SC, accused the state government of missing a pivotal opportunity for significant drug reform and ignoring the 109 recommendations which were handed down more than 18 months ago.

Professor Dan Howard has criticised the NSW government over its inaction on his recommendations from the ice inquiry.Credit: AAP

Earlier this year the state government said it would formally respond to recommendations by mid-year, with new information provided to parliament revealing the cost of the inquiry exceeded $10.8 million.

But an alliance of medical bodies, including the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Australian Medical Association NSW the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, say long-term drug policy failures and delays in response are costing lives and damaging communities.

“COVID-19 has made dealing with addiction issues even more urgent, with evidence of increasing use of alcohol and other drugs in the community. However, treatment services remain significantly underfunded and estimated to only meet the need of fewer than half those seeking help,” the groups said in a statement.

“We are calling on the state government to urgently respond to the recommendations, develop a whole-of-government alcohol, drug policy and drug action plan, significantly increase funding of alcohol and drug services and ensure personal addiction issues are treated as health and social issues, not as criminal ones.”

President of the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine, Professor Nick Lintzeris, said a proliferation of drug use has arisen during lockdowns in part “due to increasing anxiety, depression and disruption and changes to employment.”

“We are seeing problematic substance use across demographics and changes to patterns of use. After the first wave in 2020, there was a big bump in demand for services,” Professor Lintzeris said.

“During the Delta [outbreak], we’ve seen residential rehabilitation services shut their doors or cut intake. Drug and alcohol treatment provided through hospitals, GPs and community clinics have been redirected towards COVID-19 responses.

“Many of the inpatient withdrawal facilities in hospitals have been scaled back ... this comes at a time when we will see increase in demand as an aftereffect of lockdown.”

Professor Lintzeris said while the government had been proactive in responding to mental health concerns during the pandemic, there had been no response in NSW for increasing services or resources for services for substance use.

“There is long-standing underfunding of treatment services, big recommendations around decimalisation and investment need to be addressed urgently.”

In responses to questions taken on notice from Greens MP David Shoebridge, the NSW government revealed the total cost of the inquiry was $10.85 million.

“The report was delivered to the government more than 18 months ago, and it called for fundamental change, not least of which was stopping police from aggressively targeting personal drug use as a crime,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“A year and a half later and not one recommendation has been implemented.

“We now know that this whole exercise has come at a real cost to NSW taxpayers with the total bill coming to $10.85 million.”

The state government announced the special commission of inquiry into crystal methamphetamine in 2018 and published an interim response in February 2020. The inquiry received more than 250 submissions.

Recommendations included co-ordination of alcohol and other drug policy, decriminalisation, reframing substance use as a health issue and greater investment in treatment. At least five recommendations were rejected almost outright, including pill testing and another supervised injecting centre.

The latest Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission snapshot of Australia’s wastewater shows that, while people in capital cities are smoking less, consumption of alcohol, methylamphetamine, cocaine, oxycodone and fentanyl increased.

Data collected in December 2020 revealed that across metropolitan areas methylamphetamine use outstripped regional consumption for the first time since April 2017.

Causes of death data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week found alcohol-related deaths are rising, increasing by 8.3 per cent compared to 2019, or an increase of about 103 deaths.

Director of UNSW’s National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre Professor Michael Farrell said the NSW government’s commitment to a response is “well overdue”.

“The issue has been ensuring a good pathway of treatment in the community and residential rehabilitation for people who are methamphetamine dependant. There is a need to respond to families and partners affected by domestic violence.

Dr Nadine Ezard, Director of the National Centre for Clinical Research on Emerging Drugs, said statewide lockdowns have meant fewer people come forward for treatment, and it is harder for people to access services. “This problem existed before COVID-19, there weren’t enough places and treatment availability was scarce.

“It’s shameful the response to the inquiry has been delayed for so long.”

It is understood the NSW government is still considering recommendations, but no further update has been provided as to when a response will be delivered.

With Angus Thompson

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