What sort of drug law reforms are likely to be on the agenda at the 2024 NSW Drug Summit?

The changes sought are focused on people who use drugs, not cultivators, manufacturers or suppliers, because it’s long been understood that illicit drug use should be treated as a health issue and not a crime.

Uniting’s Fair Treatment campaign has been calling for drug decriminalisation in NSW and the ACT since 2018, and so have the over 70 other organisations partnering with them, which include the NSW Bar Association, Community Legal Centres NSW and the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT.

Currently, in NSW, a person found with a quantity of an illegal drug deemed for personal use can be charged with drug possession, which is an offence under section 10 of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 (NSW) (DMT Act) that carries a maximum penalty of 2 years imprisonment and/or a fine of $2,200.

While section 12 of the DMT Act makes it a crime to self-administer an illicit substance, which too carries a maximum of 2 years imprisonment and/or a fine of $2,200.

Decriminalisation would see the revoking of the criminal sanctions relating to these laws, so that possession or use would no longer be a crime. Instead, people found in possession would rather be subject to a civil penalty, a small fine, or have the option of attending a counselling session.

Another key organisation calling for the summit to be held is the NSW Council of Civil Liberties, and it’s former president Nicholas Cowdery, who is also the former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions and a long-term drug law reformist, has called on the deemed supply law to be revoked.

Section 29 of the DMT Act contains the law of deemed supply, which means that if a person has an amount of drugs upon them for personal use, but it exceeds the amount considered to be for personal use to the point that it is classed as a traffickable amount they’re then charged with supply.

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