Mrs McConnell, of Giralang, was surprised at the harsh questions police had fired at her as she once watched paramedics struggle to revive her son, and by the blame society often flung towards parents of drug users.

"It made me realise there was an injustice here with our drug laws, almost immediately. I think when there's an injustice, you must try and right it."

Mrs McConnell's quest with her late husband, Brian McConnell, to "to right a wrong" and help other families affected by drugs began after the couple's son died aged 24 in 1992.

They started Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform in 1995 to push for laws and policies that minimised harm and for addiction to be treated as a health and social problem, rather than a matter of law enforcement.

"I've always believed our drug laws were wrong and they targeted the wrong people," she said.

Mrs McConnell has now been recognised for her fight for drug law reform with an Order of Australia medal for services to community health in this year's Australia Day honours.

She was surprised to be recognised separately to Mr McConnell, who received the same honour last year, and acknowledged it was an opportunity to shine a light on the problems she'd strived so long to fix.

The McConnell's son, who they have chosen not to name publicly, was treated in hospital for a heroin overdose soon before his death. Police had attended and peppered him with questions in a bid to track down his drug dealer.

"They were just doing their job required by the law and I've never blamed them. It was counterproductive, absolutely.

"If it had just been left to the ambulance and hospital, it could have been a better outcome."

Their son discharged himself from hospital the next day and, fearing police would come back, had taken himself on holidays when he fatally overdosed.

Mrs McConnell has agitated for change and advocated for families of drug users since, saying prohibition had failed and there was still a pressing need for law reform.

She supported pill testing and said: "I think that's a pretty obvious one that must be done, and why it hasn't been I'm not sure."

In an idea world, she said, personal drug use would be decriminalised to foster open communication and better understanding between children and parents.

"We've lived in different times and I think by trying to understand better, outcomes could be so much better.

"If society didn't condemn drug users, outcomes could be so much better."

She was proud of a a yearly remembrance ceremony at Weston Park for grieving families, a policy shift which meant police no longer went to overdoses unless there was a death or violence involved, and a book, The Drug Law Wars: Twenty years of families fighting at the front, published in 2015.

Mrs McConnell said she'd slowed her campaigning since her husband's death from mesothelioma, after 45 years lived in a Mr Fluffy asbestos-contaminated house, in June last year.

"I'll never give it away altogether. There's still so much to do and I still think there needs to be a family voice in there."