Doctors and lawyers are calling for people who use drugs to be given healthcare appointments instead of court dates.
A mayor with a front-row seat to the most liberal drug decriminalisation policy in the US will join experts and decision-makers at a landmark Australian forum aiming to build consensus on how drug use and its associated harms will be managed in the coming years and decades.
They will join representatives from almost 300 organisations and dozens of politicians on Wednesday for the Sydney leg of the NSW Drug Summit.
Royal Australasian College of Physicians president Jennifer Martin said addressing drug use would require funding for treatment services, including for the trauma that could prompt people to start using drugs.
"Reducing stigma around use would make it easier for those in need of treatment to seek help and decriminalisation would prevent long-lasting adverse impacts associated with the justice system," she added.
"There is no one silver bullet that will fix the issue ... a health-focused approach requires a comprehensive understanding of interconnecting issues," Professor Martin said.
While Australia addresses drug use through the lens of harm minimisation, reform advocates have urged NSW to go further with wider decriminalisation for personal use and improved support for rehabilitation services.
Ted Wheeler is expected to outline the risk of doing one without the other. The mayor of Oregon's largest city has said addiction rates and overdose rates skyrocketed in Portland after possession for personal use was decriminalised in 2020. Rather than being sent to court or jail, people caught with a small amount of illicit drugs were fined up to $US100 ($A155). The state backtracked in April.
"To decriminalise the use of drugs before you actually had the treatment services in place was obviously a huge mistake," Mr Wheeler told the New York Times at the time.
The summit is also expected to hear about holistic approaches to rehabilitation, including catering for families. "There are clearly large numbers of children in NSW who are impacted by parental drug use," said Association of Children's Welfare Agencies in a submission to the summit. "However, there are very few services that can provide whole-of-family support and even fewer residential rehabilitation and withdrawal management services that can allow parents to bring their children."
Input is also expected from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, law and order bodies, people with lived experience of drug use, and those involved in the 1999 drug summit. Data published by the summit suggested that incidents involving people going through the justice system for drug use and possession incidents in NSW were declining - down to about 22,800 cases in 2023. About half were related to cannabis, although one-third were diverted into alternative pathways.
"Law Society of NSW president Brett McGrath said cannabis cautions and diversions were a positive step towards a health-based approach to drug reform," he backed further investment into rehabilitation services.
"Investment in rehabilitation services, particularly in regional, rural, remote areas coupled with criminal law reform will contribute towards improved community safety while relieving strain on police courts" he stated.