Australia21's ground breaking report about the health and social harms created or worsened by our current drug policies will be released to mark the end of the Long Walk to Treatment on 2 November 2018.
We All Pay The Price explores the complex two-way interactions between the punitive approach to drug use and problems including poverty, social disadvantage, unemployment, homelessness, family violence, child protection interventions, mental illness, stigma, discrimination and suicide. It calls for the removal of criminal sanctions for consumption and a boost in funding for treatment, to reduce the health, social and economic costs of drug harms ultimately borne by all Australians.
The report is the product of an unprecedented Roundtable collaboration between experts in drug law, drug treatment and community welfare. The diverse participants included representatives from the Kings Cross MSIC, Uniting ReGen, Anglicare Australia, the Noffs Foundation, the ACT Council of Social Services, the Victorian Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, the Penington Institute, Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform, the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, the ACU Institute of Child Protection Studies, the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation and high profile addiction specialists, sociologists and criminologists, as well as participants with lived experience of drug use and imprisonment.
The legitimacy of these voices cannot be ignored.
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