Canberra's over-stretched drug and alcohol counselling services will receive more resources to tackle the drug ice, the federal government has announced.
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$2.86 million will be allocated to Canberra's Capital Health Network to tender out for extra drug and alcohol counselling services from July 1, federal health minister Sussan Ley and ACT Senator Zed Seselja said on Wednesday.
It's part of a $300 million package across the country that was announced prior to the government going into caretaker mode.
The package stems from the National Ice Taskforce Report, which was handed down last December.
About 100 people with amphetamine addictions access the territory's existing drug rehabilitation services each day, Capital Health Network chairman Dr Martin Liedvogel said.
He said the ACT's low rate of engagement in drug and alcohol counselling was due to existing services being already at capacity.
"In any one day, 300 people are accessing alcohol and other drug services here in the ACT. Of those 300 Canberrans, two-thirds are male, 70 per cent have no employment, 18 per cent are homeless and 43 per cent have children," he said.
"We know that specialist drug and alcohol counselling services are a key part of rehabilitation for people who use methamphetamine and it helps if people receive an immediate intervention in the key period right at the beginning but it also will provide an ongoing assessment for them."
Part of the funding will also go to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who make up a third of those currently seeking support, will have access to culturally-appropriate services.
Drug support services have warned in recent years that they are being increasingly stretched by a combination of rising demand, increasing numbers of complex polysubstance abuse cases, and stagnant government funding.
The ACT government set aside an extra $6 million in Tuesday's budget to cut down on waiting lists and continue the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, among a raft of funding boosts to improve Canberra's drug treatment and rehab service.
Senator Seselja said the Commonwealth's additional rehabilitation funding was part of a two-pronged approach to stamp out ice addition and related crime.
"Law enforcement is part of it but it's not the entire answer as we know," he said.
He said the funding would help Canberra services to cope with demand for services from the wider region too.
Minister Ley said law enforcement were often the first ones to highlight the need for more rehabilitation services.
"The police are the first ones to step up and say to us 'you've got to help these kids, you've got to find somewhere for them to go'," she said.
"Typically someone undergoes detox in a jail cell which is an awful thing to do but after that we have to have the facility for them to be placed, that's what this money will provide."
