Page 2283 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2022
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the ACT. The proper evidence-based implementation of decriminalisation will enable a health-based response to drug use by reducing the stigmatisation of people who use drugs and ending the fear that these people experience when accessing health services.
Over the past 18 months I have had the benefit of listening to and learning from local and national experts in the field of drug harm reduction. The inquiry that was initiated as a result of this bill heard from over 80 individuals and organisations. On the first day of hearings we heard from families and carers of people who have used drugs, including people whose children had passed away from overdoses that would have likely been prevented if the reforms we are discussing today were not decades overdue.
Later in these same hearings we heard from doctors in the emergency department, people who run therapy for people experiencing substance dependencies, academics and legal experts. These people wrote passionate, detailed and evidence-based submissions before they appeared in person before the committee to answer questions on drug harm reduction and the experiences of caring for people with a problematic relationship with substance abuse.
Since the tabling of the select committee inquiry into the Drugs of Dependence (Personal Use) Amendment Bill 2021, my office and I have been working closely with local and national experts to advocate for the government’s response to Mr Pettersson’s bill to be effective and impact those who need it the most. This group includes people with lived experience of drug use and their families and their friends, researchers, alcohol and other drugs support workers, lawyers and doctors. This group is calling for an evidence-based approach to possession limits and an assurance that people who are found in possession of drugs for personal use will not be criminalised. We know that this reform should be done correctly from the beginning or we risk spending several more decades with a system that continues to penalise people for a health problem.
I would like to begin today by giving thanks to the researchers, advocates, carers and workers who have contributed to this bill and to the Greens amendments. Your voices too often go unheard, and I am really proud to be here today knowing that you stand behind me and behind the ACT Greens in our desire to get this reform right.
In April I met with Dr Devin Bowles, from the Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drug Association, and Chris Gough, from CAHMA, the local drug user advocacy league. At this meeting we discussed a broad range of policy concerns facing the drug and alcohol sector. I was particularly struck by a diagram that Devin had created to help visualise the impact of drug law reform and harm reduction in our community. This diagram had overlapping circles indicating communities of people experiencing homelessness, people with mental health issues, people living in poverty and people caught up in the child protection system. Devin pointed to the centre of this diagram and said to me:
While they try very hard the ACT government rarely gets to, in one policy shift, materially improve the lives of people at this intersection. It can be incredibly challenging to reach people at this intersection—people who have spent their life marginalised, derided and discriminated against. Preventing people from entering the criminal justice system and increasing the likelihood of people accessing
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