The scientific evidence is clear, and has been for a long time, that drug issues need to be treated as a health issue not as a police issue.
The NSW special commission of inquiry into the drug ‘Ice’ (crystal methamphetamine and other amphetamine-type stimulants) released in February 2020 recommended decriminalisation of drugs stating ‘that the [NSW] government needs to introduce a system of decriminalisation if it is going to stop drug deaths in New South Wales’.
This approach, regardless of its merits, has been rejected by both NSW Liberal-National and Labor governments. What we do have is the Early Drug Diversion Initiative (EDDI) which has been in place in NSW for over a year. It is an initiative designed to divert people found in possession of drugs away from the criminal justice system.
However, as Professor Alison Ritter AO of UNSW’s Drug Policy Modelling Program made clear at the recent webinar on Global Perspectives on Drug Diversion hosted by Uniting, ‘It’s not going so well’.
‘It’s quite difficult to get data on it [EDDI]. And this data comes from freedom of information requests and our Bureau of Crime Statistics (BOCS). This data relates to the first six months of the program, where there were 6,332 incidents of simple drug use and possession, of which 436 were offered the diversion option. So that’s a diversion rate of 6.4 per cent. Worryingly, the diversion rate for non-Indigenous Australians was 7 per cent, whereas for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, it was 2.7 per cent. So there is a significant difference in the rate for white versus black people.
‘The rates also varied enormously by police area command. In one police area command, the rate was 0.07 per cent, in another it was 32 per cent – so clearly, uptake varies enormously between local area command and also it varies by drug type,’ explained Professor Ritter.
‘Cocaine, LSD, and ecstasy, [were offered diversion of] somewhere between 22 and 28 per cent, diversion for heroin is 2.3 per cent and methamphetamine, crystal methamphetamine, it’s a 3.8 per cent [diversion rate].’
This current failure of drug policy across Australia is supported by new analysis by drug policy research non-profit Penington Institute that reveals that 2,272 Australians died from an overdose in 2023, the equivalent of 189 people each month.
‘Over three-quarters of the deaths (77.8 per cent) were unintentional, and most involved more than one drug type,’ said the Penington Institute in a recent press release.
‘The grim death toll is recorded in Penington Institute’s “overdose snapshot” report, based on mortality data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).’
Diversion that works
Emma Maiden, Uniting NSW.ACT’s Director of Advocacy and External Relations said, ‘As we await the NSW government’s response to the Drug Summit Report, momentum for drug law reform continues to build around Australia – a permanent pill testing site has been announced for Melbourne, and another music festival successfully held the NSW government’s drug checking trial.
‘One of the NSW Drug Summit Report’s recommendations is that we improve existing schemes in NSW and this is an excellent opportunity to see how other schemes are working well.’
Speaking to the Global Perspectives on Drug Diversion webinar on diversion programs were Jason Harwin, a retired Chief Police Officer with over 30 years’ experience; Jason Kew; Senior Practice Lead at The Centre for Justice Innovation and Senior Drug Policy and ex-police officer; and Darren Nicholas, the Assistant Director of Criminal Justice Services at Cranstoun.
While Mr Harwin highlighted that the UK is facing similar challenges with ‘Scotland having one of the highest levels of drug related deaths in Europe, and Wales and England are not far behind,’ he said the challenge is the interaction of legislation and evidence-based approaches to drug policy and action.
A key part of the UK approach is diversion and giving the police the opportunity for quick and simple assessments of possession and then driving those cases towards a diversion program.
‘We want to reduce reoffending,’ explained Jason Kew.
‘We need to address the person’s needs first and foremost. So if police find anybody in possession of a controlled drug, this is principally a health matter, not a criminal one, so we awant to defer that case immediately to the experts, and they’re the drug service.
‘The principles are that the drug service contact the individual on the day, or the day after, police obviously seized the drug, and then refer the individual to the provider. That’s the outcome.’
What is clear is that in the case of possession, that is the end of the police’s role.
‘The policing of drugs can be made much simpler, authentic and evidence-based if we let the professionals deal with it,’ said Kew.
‘If it’s possession of a drug, it’s a health issue, it’s an education issue, it’s a harm reduction issue, if it’s an issue at all.
‘The outcomes are really different as well, so we have to understand that the policing of drugs increases racial disproportionately in the justice system, we have to acknowledge that the evidence is absolutely clear, a black man is nine times more likely to be convicted of possessing cannabis than a white man, we need to put that right’
Darren Nicholas, the Assistant Director of Criminal Justice Services at Cranstoun spoke to the development and use of an easy, simple possession app for police that they currently use in the West Midlands, West Mercia, Warwickshire and Staffordshire police districts in the UK. The app facilitates the easy referral by on the street police officers to the diversion services.
‘The officer does a few background checks on the person to see if there’s any warrants out for them, or if there’s any wider thing going on for that individual. If not, that person is eligible for diversion, as simple as that,’ explained Nicholas.
‘So unless there’s lots of cash, lots of paraphernalia around dealing, etc, it’s basically go with diversion. The officer then fills in the details on the mobile phone to refer that person over to us, and that is where things finish between that person and the police.’
Cranstoun then provide an easy-to-access telephone assessment which has been tried and tested over the last five years.
‘It’s a holistic assessment. So although a lot of it is about the drug use and what’s going on for that person with their drug use, we look at the whole person. We do a gambling screening, an alcohol screening. We’re looking to see if there’s any employment issues, any training issues, education issues, if there’s any mental health problems, any housing issues, whatever’s going on for that person, we want to try and identify with them. Then we onwards refer them, and signpost into all those local support things.
‘It’s a really crucial window of opportunity to get people, meeting them in the right place at the right time, getting to those root causes of what’s going for that person, because it might be quite low-level drug use and it might be a symptom of something much bigger for the person, like a mental health issue or housing issues, it’s about getting in there to get the right support for that person.
‘That’s part one. Part two is then that person’s then referred into our educational group work session. So that’s very much a drugs education piece, very much a harm reduction piece, and it’s very much designed to what that person needs. So we have dedicated courses for particular substances, if that is, like a sole substance of use for that person.’
The program has a 70 per cent engagement completion rate with a current recidivism rate of just under 5 per cent.
‘Every time a police officer does pre-arrest diversion, rather than arresting that person and taking them into police custody, it’s been estimated that it saves at least four hours and 15 minutes of police time. That’s a very conservative estimate,’ said Nicholas.
‘So when we look at that, compared to the over 18,000 referrals we’ve had since we started, we have actually saved the police nearly 80,000 of police hours, probably a lot more. So that is hours and resources being put into investigating, and put in focus on those more serious, violent crimes, sexual crimes, etc.’
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