The head of the ACT's peak drug support advocacy body has warned the waiting lists for drug treatment would blow out and users be placed at risk if feared federal government cuts to treatment providers were realised.
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Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drug Association ACT executive officer Carrie Fowlie said a growth in ACT users of ice, reflecting a national trend as a higher purity of drug was available, meant treatment services were already stretched.
"When we have people experiencing really serious harm because of the purity, then we have these two month waiting lists for treatment – the harms will be exacerbated."
"It would be catastrophic for the sector to lose federal drug funding."
Ms Fowlie said treatment services saved lives, with alcohol still the drug causing the widest and most expensive harm to society, but no federal funds had been confirmed beyond June 30.
The fear was cuts by the Department of Social Services, which on Monday scrapped all future funding for financial counselling and housing advocacy groups like National Shelter, would also extend to drug treatment providers.
Karralika drug outreach program chief executive Camilla Rowland said she feared $280,000 of federal funding for a family treatment program, to be exhausted in February, was at risk, at a time when Karralika had the highest rate of methamphetamine concern among clients in its 36-year history.
"People who come and seek treatment – chronic methamphetamine users – their physical health [is] very poor.
"It takes significant – far more intensive – health treatment."
Figures show overall ACT methamphetamine use has been generally stable since 2011, but of the people who inject drugs surveyed, the portion who used ice in the past six months rose to 72 per cent, from 61 per cent in 2013.
Powder meth users rose from 29 per cent to 36 per cent in the same period.
Ms Rowland said a greater share of public money was warranted for treatment of users of illicit drugs, rather than law enforcement.
In the Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drug Association submission for the ACT government's 2015-16 budget in October, the association said it was "unacceptable" some drug users had to wait up to two months to access residential alcohol and drug treatment.
"The research tells us that ... people waiting to access treatment tend to have increased drug, psychiatric and
"It perpetuates or prolongs crisis, risks and harms for people needing treatment, their families and the community."
Assistant Health Minster Fiona Nash said the growing problem of ice would be the "first work priority" of the newly shaped National Advisory Council for Alcohol and Drugs, now led by former Nationals MP Kay Hull.
