28 June 2022

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians is extremely disappointed that the NSW Government continues to avoid the opportunity to fund the recommendations from the Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into crystal methamphetamine and other amphetamine type stimulants.

While the RACP would like all of the Final Report’s recommendations to be adopted in full, it at a minimum wants to see the recommendations that were not ruled out in the government’s interim response in February 2020, to be accepted and actioned with urgency.

Professor Adrian Dunlop, RACP spokesperson and President of the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine says “This inquiry took place in 2018, we’re now halfway through 2022, and we’re still waiting on the full response from the NSW Government.

“The NSW Budget was an opportunity to fund important, much needed drug policy reform. 

“In the lead up to the Budget, the RACP wrote to the NSW Premier and relevant Ministers to urge the NSW government to seize this opportunity to make meaningful, lasting change by supporting the Inquiry’s recommendations and committing funding to their implementation in the NSW State Budget.

“We understand these are complex reforms – but clear recommendations were laid out in Professor Dan Howard SC’s comprehensive, evidence-based report. This report was based on large scale consultation with all stakeholders across NSW including experts in the field, service providers, persons with lived experience, community members and many others. It was released more than two years ago.

“The recommendations set out in the Special Inquiry’s Final Report are designed to address the complex health, legal and social issues surrounding problematic alcohol and other drug use in our communities, and they need to be implemented in full.

“We should not let competing political views get in the way of important, expert-driven reform.

“Long-term policy failures relating to alcohol and other drugs are costing lives and damaging communities. The lack of adequate support to address the harms caused by alcohol and other drugs has only been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and increasingly overstretched health services and health staff.

“Ongoing delays to executing these important reforms will be at the cost of lives and livelihoods in the NSW community.

“NSW has in the past led the way in treatment and harm minimisation responses – and can do so again if it implements the recommendations of the Special Commission’s final report within a comprehensive alcohol and other drugs strategy.”

In October 2021, the RACP, RACGP, RANZCP and AMA NSW released a joint statement calling on the NSW Government to urgently:

• respond to the Ice Inquiry recommendations.
• develop an evidence-based whole-of-government alcohol and other drugs policy and a Drug Action Plan as recommended in the Commission’s Report, in consultation with experts in addiction medicine, general practitioners and other relevant health practitioners.
• significantly increase funding of evidence-based alcohol and other drugs services so that everyone seeking treatment can get it.
• ensure personal addiction issues are treated as health and social issues, not as criminal ones.