UNSW Sydney Media Release
Governments in Australia spent nearly $5.5 billion on illicit drug countermeasures in 2021/2022, but less than 10 per cent went towards strategies aimed at preventing use and reducing negative consequences.
Australian governments spend more on law enforcement in illicit drug policy than treatment, prevention and harm reduction combined, says a UNSW Sydney report.
The findings published today reveal that state and federal governments spent approximately $5.45 billion in the 2021/2022 financial year on illicit drug countermeasures. Nearly 65 per cent ($3.5 billion) was spent on law enforcement programs, including $1.8 billion on routine policing against drugs. Less than 2 per cent ($90 million) was spent on harm reduction measures such as needle syringe programs and supervised injecting facilities.
“Governments do invest a significant amount of money on proactive drug policy, and where they spend that money shows what they consider as important in responding to drugs,” says Professor Alison Ritter AO, the report’s lead author and drug policy specialist at the Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture. “This research provides the foundation for evaluating the investment and whether Australia is on the right path to reducing drug-related harm.”
Proportion of spending down on prevention and harm reduction
The Australian ‘drug budget’: Government drug policy expenditure 2021/22 is the most recent report in the ‘drug budget’ series, which estimates spending on proactive responses to illicit drugs by governments across Australia.
The proportion spent on prevention, such as in-school education programs, slightly decreased since the last report in 2009/10, down from 9.5 per cent to 6.7 per cent in 2021/22. Spending on harm reduction also decreased from 2.2 per cent to just 1.6 per cent.
Spending on law enforcement remained relatively stable, slightly down from 64.9 per cent to 64.3 per cent of expenditure. Meanwhile, spending on drug treatment services rose from 22.0 per cent to 27.4 per cent.
Dr Annie Madden AO, Executive Director of Harm Reduction Australia (HRA), says the report reveals the true extent of governments’ chronic under-investment in harm reduction.
“Australian governments have continued to claim their position as a global leader in harm reduction over many decades. In this case, however, the evidence does not lie,” Dr Madden says. “We know that frontline harm reduction services such as needle and syringe programs, opioid treatment, take-home naloxone, drug consumption rooms and drug checking services reduce potential harms including drug-related deaths.
“The fact that harm reduction spending has continued to decline in the face of unprecedented evidence of impact and effectiveness is deeply concerning for many reasons, not the least of which is the undeniable fact that harm reduction saves lives.”
State and territory governments spent the most against illicit drugs, accounting for 76 per cent or $4.11 billion of the total proactive expenditure, the majority of which ($2.87 billion) was for state law enforcement.
“The lion’s share of the investment is from state governments and continues to be in law enforcement, and that’s related to the policing of drugs, which we know is an expensive activity,” Prof. Ritter says. “At the same time, the amount that’s invested in helping people who are experiencing problems with illicit drugs is significantly less as a proportion of spending.”
Illicit drug use is a significant health, social and economic issue for Australia, with the latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey 22/23 population survey showing a small increase last year in use, Prof. Ritter says. There has also been a noticeable shift in the types of illicit drugs being used, including crystal methamphetamine and hallucinogens.
CEO of Alcohol and Drug Foundation, Dr Erin Lalor AM, says despite efforts from law enforcement, there’s been a concerning increase in the number of Australians experiencing drug-related harms, such as hospitalisations and fatal overdoses. She says prevention is a crucial part of a comprehensive approach needed to reduce the impact of drug-related harms, particularly among young people.
“The number of drug-induced deaths in Australia is unacceptably high and has sadly been increasing since 2006,” Dr Lalor says. “These heartbreaking deaths are mostly preventable and have a ripple effect on the community, with friends and families suffering.
“We need increased, long-term funding commitments for evidence-based prevention initiatives that reduce risk factors for harmful illicit drug use and boost protective factors, as well as targeted education campaigns in populations at greater risk of harm and those that address stigma.”
While the total amount spent by governments against illicit drugs more than tripled from the last report in 2009/10 ($1.7 billion), the 2021/2022 estimate represents just 0.63 per cent of all government spending, down from 0.80 per cent in the last report.
“These figures suggest that despite a significant increase in proactive government spending on drugs since the last report, this reflects overall growth in government spending and not growth in spending on drug countermeasures,” Prof. Ritter says. “However, what’s striking is that despite the percentage reduction in proactive expenditure, there hasn’t been any significant shift in the proportion of investment amongst the four domains of drug policy.”
Impact on service providers
The Network of Alcohol and other Drugs Agencies (NADA) is the peak body for NGO AOD service providers in NSW. Its CEO, Dr Robert Stirling, says services on the frontline are suffering from the lack of growth in investment
“We have a noticeable, growing unmet demand for services in the sector from underfunding, demonstrated by increasing wait times for treatment and workforce shortages from a lack of secure working conditions,” Dr Stirling says.
“At the NSW level, money for treatment has predominantly been spent on new services rather than investing in existing services to ensure they can deliver quality services and create healthy workplaces and conditions.
“Meanwhile, at the Commonwealth level, funding has been going backwards, leaving services struggling to retain staff and needing to reduce services to communities.”
Emma Maiden, General Manager of Advocacy and External Relations for Uniting NSW.ACT, says governments should consider removing criminal penalties, and redirect funding towards the other pillars of drug policy.
“To see that the largest expenditure in the latest Australian ‘drug budget’ is once again directed to law enforcement, and how that spending monsters what is spent on drug treatment, prevention and harm reduction programs, is of great concern,” Ms Maiden says. “We need our governments to have the courage to take action and invest the lion’s share of our drug budget in the things we know will make a difference.”
Prof. Ritter says the report does not assess the effectiveness of the investment across domains, and the relative value of the estimates is more important than any absolute value.
“There is no line item in government expenditure estimates that explicitly lays out how much they spend on illicit drugs,” Prof. Ritter says. “So, there are some assumptions behind every figure, which we have accounted for in our sensitivity analysis.”
The latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey also shows Australians want roughly equal investment across education, treatment, and law enforcement in illicit drug policy.
“Most people, on average, want governments to spend equal amounts on policing, treatment and prevention,” Prof. Ritter says. “So, the current investment mix does not necessarily match how most Australians would prefer governments to allocate funding across the domains of drug policy.”
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To start with a simple fact is that we all know illicitt drugs are illegal.
So why do we have State governments around the country spending billions of dollars policing against drugs, etc………..and then on the other hand we waste more millions or billions on providing “safe injection centres” and “pill testing centres” at major events and such.
To say again taking drugs is illegal. Is it not a massive contradiction to provide injection centres and pill testing so people can take their illegal drugs safely????????????
People are stupid and stupid people just do whatever they want regardless of the consequences. So why don’t we just stop both policing and assisting their illegal activities and just go to the source of the problem – the suppliers. Cut off the head of the snake. Take away the supply and all those stupid people will be unable to pursue their illegal activities and all those billions of taxpayer dollars can be better spent elsewhere.
The above commenter, with all due respect, has a very simplistic outlook on what is a quite complex matter. Simplistic responses to complex problems are rarely effective. Illegalising & prohibition of materials that people like to consume has never been an effective measure; America learned that during the Prohibition era, a government measure intended to purge the community of its taste for alcohol and bring about social order as a consequence… and we’re all very familiar with how that worked out.
And now, almost fifty-three years after Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act into law on the 17th of June 1971, most American states have either decriminalised cannabis use or made it available through medical prescription; other materials such as psilocybin and MDMA are being brought into therapeutic use for trauma and depression treatment; peyote is allowed for certain indigenous peoples as a sacramental plant, ayahuasca also…
The plain cold facts are that people take things that change their consciousness, have been so doing since the year dot, and are likely to continue so doing into the indeterminate future. Government’s role in all of this, if any, would be best served by legalising and managing clean supply, a process which would more or less instantly remove the criminal elements involved; the massive black markets, along with the insanity of competition between cartels which is best exemplified in the slaughterhouse that is the state of affairs in Mexico.
Tut-tutting and moralising about people’s behaviour which is so typically wowserish does nothing to address the core issues at play.
All countries which have had significant decriminalisation programs have demonstrated through evidence-based studies that their societies do not fall into some modern-day facsimile of a never-ending Roman orgy of drug abuse along with corollary negative impacts; crime rates fall, less, and in some cases zero drug-related deaths, all a function of making clean & pure materials legally available.
Legalise, regulate, tax, promote health and safe consumption; we sort of manage with alcohol, but just cannabis is still a voodoo topic in conservative Australia?
Canguru: ‘Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act into law on the 17th of June 1971’
https://www.nyclu.org/resources/policy/testimonies/rockefeller-drug-laws-cause-racial-disparities-huge-taxpayer-burden
Infamous Rockefeller drug laws, used to profile ‘other types’ and lefty students; fossil fueled Rockefeller Bros. Fund also behind Tanton & Ehrlich’s ZPG Zero Population Growth blaming other types and centrist politicians for migration/population inducing policies, and ‘the great replacement’.
Ironically, but logically, Charles Koch supports legalisation due to the cost of incarceration to government budgets….precluding tax cuts.
Meanwhile, the legal drugs nicotine and alcohol continue to kill more people yet are considered an integral part of our society, especially alcohol. The double standard is ludicrous; “my drugs are OK, yours are not”.
An ounce of prevention, so to speak… Back to the sixties and seventies, the fogies were no match for rock publicity and the glamor of people like Jimi Page and Keith Richard. They told us “you can’t” which was a red rag to a bull for many eighteen nineteen yo ‘s ,etc , back then. A bit like the “you can’t protest Gaza”, which has seen thousand s of young people out on the streets looking askance at such nonsense.
……..
Btw, nice pic for starter…never seen green ice before..