More needs to be done to keep the ACT's young people out of the criminal justice system and help those using drugs to get off them.
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That is the overarching message in the territory's Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Association's 2016 election platform, to be released this week.
Among the top priorities were: expanding the simple cannabis offence notice (SCON) fine system to all other drugs; deeper efforts to divert young people arrested for minor drug offences away from the criminal justice system and providing more withdrawal treatment services for those dependant on drugs to safely stop using.
ATODA chief executive Carrie Fowlie said the plan was both a call to action for the next government, but also a four-year agenda for ATODA – 10 key issues to be addressed during the next term of the Assembly distilled from a list of more than 100 priorities.
She said that given the SCON system had been found to be effective, and a 56 per cent rise in minor drug arrests in the past six years, it was time to trial an expanded scheme.
"We know that involving minor drug offenders doesn't prevent drug use and we know that treatments, these two diversion options, either receive a fine for a small amount of drugs such as pills, or to be diverted into treatment, do work.
"We know that a major outcome of treatment is a reduction in self-reported crime and that's much cheaper than imprisoning them or dealing with the acute health problems that could result."
Ms Fowlie said the current withdrawal programs and services fell well short of demand, with a 36 per cent increase in demand for specialist treatment services in the last few years.
"One treatment type we need is residential rehabilitation, in order to get in people need to complete a formal withdrawal," she said.
"Their only option at the moment is to go into a residential withdrawal service, and it's not keeping pace with the demand.
"In addition to that there's a need for an outpatient withdrawal service, it would be cheaper than a hospital stay and allow more people to access that."
Ms Fowlie said the key thing was when someone was asking for help that "the system can mobilise immediately, we need to have the capacity to offer that help.
"Right now we've got waiting lists and people asking for help, we can't get them into the service they need and [that] keeps individuals experiencing harm," she said.
The association has also reiterated previous calls for the ACT to implement a Territory-wide "interim compassionate medicinal cannabis regime" until the national scheme was fully operational, including cannabis health products being available legally.
An ACT Legislative Assembly committee report endorsed creating such a scheme in the ACT in 2015, but it has not been implemented.
"The scheme in the ACT could have a sunset clauses in the legislation, for when the national scheme starts operating," Ms Fowlie said.
"And it would help to relieve the deep human suffering that many people with serious illnesses are suffering, whether it's the symptoms of the disease or sometimes the side effects of powerful treatments they have to undertake."
The ATODA platform also called for changes to the ACT courts' fine system for minor offences that would align them in proportion to a person's income, rather than a flat figure; increase random breath testing of drivers on ACT roads and creation of a Canberra Centre of Excellence in Alcohol and Other Drug Studies linked to local universities.
It also urged the ACT government to complete the Territory's Alcohol and Other Drug Strategy, which was understood to have been delayed due to the election and for more investment in specialist drug and alcohol treatment efforts that were "part of broader clinical services and health sector planning processes".
