Australia has experimented with drug summits for 40 years. They’ve come with highs and lows, writes ROSS FITZGERALD.

Australia’s first official meeting referred to as a “drug summit” was convened on April 2 1985 in Canberra by Bob Hawke, the then ALP prime minister.

Officially known as The Special Premiers’ Conference, Hawke met with the six state premiers and the NT Chief Minister – the ACT was not represented as this meeting took place before self government.

This meant that the heads of five Labor governments met with the heads of three conservative governments (Queensland, Tasmania and the NT). It was the first time since World War II that the heads of all Australian governments had met to discuss any matter other than finance.

In December 1984, Hawke promised that, if his government was returned at the election, he would convene a drug summit early in 1985. The 40th anniversary of this important event falls in April.

As a result, a National Campaign Against Drug Abuse was approved, funding for drug treatment and support was increased, and wide-ranging governance structures were developed.

The ALP government’s commitment to harm minimisation meant that responding effectively to the severe threat of HIV infection spreading among people who injected drugs and from them to the general population became a little less difficult.

While Australia’s first drug summit involved only senior political leaders meeting privately, subsequent summits have helpfully included people from diverse backgrounds discussing drug policy publicly.

In January 1999, two months before a state election, NSW ALP Premier Bob Carr announced that NSW would hold a drug summit if his government was returned at the forthcoming election. The Carr government was re-elected, and a 1999 NSW drug summit proceeded in May over five days in the NSW Parliament.

Members of parliament, researchers, clinicians, law enforcement, parents and some with lived experience, including myself, were involved. Appropriately, discussion about reducing the harms caused by alcohol was part of the agenda.

The drug summit, which generated widespread media coverage, especially about a proposal for a medically supervised injecting centre, produced 172 recommendations. All except for three were approved by the NSW cabinet.

These 169 included a recommendation to establish a centre in Kings Cross where people could inject drugs without risk of legal sanctions and with immediate health support if needed. This proposal attracted the lion’s share of media interest in the drug summit but many other sensible and effective reforms were approved and implemented.

In August 2001, with a state Labor government in power, WA conducted a community drug summit that recommended expanding the needle syringe program and approved modest reforms to legislation covering the recreational use of cannabis. However, these reforms were largely reversed by a subsequent conservative government.

In December 2024, on the initiative of ALP premier Chris Minns, a NSW drug summit was held over four days, with a day each in Griffith and Lismore, and two days at the Sydney Convention Centre.

Before the March 2023 elections, Minns, as opposition leader, supported a drug summit, pill testing, decriminalisation of drug use and possession of small quantities of drugs and reform of cannabis laws.

But after becoming premier, he argued he did not have a mandate for these policy changes.

After the summit, NSW Health Minister Ryan Park announced the approval of pill testing in time for it to become operational over the summer music festivals, which have yet to commence.

The two co-chairs of the meeting, Labor former deputy premier Carmel Tebbutt and Liberal former opposition leader John Brogden, are preparing a report including recommendations that is likely to be released in April, and will later be considered by cabinet.

Drug policy is an issue many governments still find difficult. This is because after many decades of relying heavily on law enforcement to reduce drug supply, drugs are more available than ever and in increasingly dangerous new varieties.

Politicians remain terrified of a community backlash against even modest shifts in emphasis from drug law enforcement to drug treatment, social support and harm reduction.

The proven benefits of drug law enforcement are very modest, while the cost of customs, police, courts and prisons are extremely expensive. Community attitudes increasingly favour greater support for health and social measures, including harm reduction.

Veteran drug law reform advocate Dr Alex Wodak AM correctly argues that “the attraction of politicians to expensive measures intended to restrict the availability of drugs have not only failed again and again, but made a difficult situation much worse.

“Governments are addicted to failed policies, just as some people can’t stop using drugs that make their lives a misery.”

Importantly, in recent years, the ACT has moved effectively in a direction that other jurisdictions have either failed to follow or to persist in following, ie decisively towards harm minimisation.

Ross Fitzgerald AM is Emeritus Professor of History & Politics at Griffith University.