In a sunny, secluded corner of Weston Park in Canberra, more than 100 people gathered yesterday to mark the 16th Annual Remembrance Day for Drug Deaths.
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The ceremony was organised by the ACT group, Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform, to support those who had lost loved ones to illicit drugs.
Kerel Pearce knows all too well the pain of losing a family member to drugs at a young age. Her older brother Patrick, a truck driver, died suddenly aged 28, devastating the family he left behind.
''It was very hard to believe that the world kept going on, because for us our world had ended,'' she said.
Family members and friends were invited to lay flowers at a memorial stone at the site.
ALP Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh spoke of a close friend who had been involved in illicit drug use and died.
He said it was time for the federal Parliament to review drug laws, to combat high rates of incarceration on drug-related charges.
Dr Leigh said drug laws should be based in evidence, and not ''moralising slogans''.
