Implementing NSW drug summit recommendations should not be delayed

Drug law reform is one of those polarising social issues that often creates inertia in politics and officialdom, and their tortoise-like pace to appropriate change proceeds in NSW.

Four months after the 2024 Drug Summit ended, its final report has been made public, and the Minns government has been given another six months to respond. Held 25 years after the 1999 drug summit, which led to the opening of King Cross’ medically supervised injecting room and sterile syringe programs, the summit was a Labor election promise.

But given Premier Chris Minns warned attendees they would not agree with every speaker and urged them to find “points where we agree” to find “workable” policies, the summit stayed clear of decriminalising drugs.

The report includes 56 recommendations, ranging from legalising driving while using cannabis to developing a whole-of-government alcohol and other drugs strategy within the next year. It also recommends the period for a conviction for minor drug use or possession remaining on a person’s criminal record be reduced from 10 years to five for an adult and from three years to one for juveniles, and it calls for police to stop using drug detection dogs and strip searches during the current trial of pill testing at music festivals in NSW – and making the ban permanent. Other recommendations include more medically supervised injecting rooms, expanding drug courts to regional areas and strengthening diversion programs for youth offenders.

Social media campaigns and increased investment in public and social housing were also suggested as ways to divert young people from drug use. Emphasis was placed on early drug intervention programs for children before they reach the age of five.

NSW has endured years of reports, reviews and delayed government responses when urgent reform and action on drug legislation was needed. Many of the arguments last December were presented at the previous summit called by Bob Carr. He evaluated the political impact of bowing to expert demands for the opening of safe injecting rooms, and, in light of a heroin epidemic that brought sharp increases in opioid overdose deaths and blood-borne virus transmission, decided reform was necessary.

Drug summit recommendations are always radical. That is partly because in this difficult area of social policy, timidity has long ruled, and adversarial policies have been regularly deployed as a battering ram by political opponents. Reform is hard on such polarising issues. It does not imply approval, but rather the acceptance of a responsibility to help save lives where they can be saved.

The year-long pill testing trial that started last summer was the first fruit of the 2024 drug summit, but there will be concern that the summit lacked balance or that difficult issues raised were not properly considered.

Minns is a conservative on drug reform, and the argument that a mandate for change will have to wait until the 2027 election campaign is politically understandable. The premier does not have to accept everything that has come out of the drug summit, but he cannot walk away from its main recommendations.

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