Sydney appears to be facing an escalation of organised crime violence. The shootings this month of 23-year-old university student Marco Tapia and, two days later, 40-year-old Joshua Macdonald in the city's west, highlighted the often hidden world of organised crime and its violence.
Author
- Alex Simpson
Associate Professor in Criminology, Macquarie University
It led to Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett stating a renewed conversation was needed about the links between illicit drug use and organised crime in Australia.
But is Australians' hunger for illicit drugs the main reason for the growing concerns about organised crime? The stats are murky.
The violence that sparked Barrett's comments
The recent murders of Tapia and Macdonald follow the alleged kidnapping and murder earlier this year of 85-year-old Chris Baghsarian.
In each case, police strongly believe the victims had no links to organised crime and were tragic cases of mistaken identity.
These events bring the total murders attributed to Sydney's underworld since 2020 to 41 , with an estimated eight people murdered in cases of mistaken identity since 2021.
NSW Police have defended claims that organised crime violence is " out of control ". Premier Chris Minns though has introduced new laws in an attempt to quell organised crime.
Much of the violence stems from an escalating feud between rival crime networks fighting over Sydney's lucrative drug trade. This sparked Barrett's comments about the relationship between organised crime and illicit drugs.
Barrett frames the violence as fundamentally being driven by Australia's "voracious consumption of illicit drugs" and the "absurd" prices users are willing to pay.
According to Barrett, reducing demand for illicit drugs will reduce the power and violence of organised crime groups in Sydney (although she also stated it is "not a NSW problem - it is an Australian problem").
But is illicit drug use increasing? What do illicit drug use trends across Australia actually show?
Measuring Australians' drug use isn't simple
It is important to state that measuring illicit drug use is inherently problematic.
As with all hidden and illegal practices, there is no single definitive measure that gives us a perfect picture. Rather, the best we can do is piece together an approximation of the scale of the problem from the sources available.
The first of these comes from police figures. Looking at NSW data , the general trend is a moderate fall in overall drug use and possession offences. Across the state, from 2016/17 to 2025/26, total drug offences fell by just over 10%. In Greater Sydney, in the same period, there was a slightly more significant 12.6% fall.
While illicit drug offences in the past year - across the state and Greater Sydney - are slightly up from the previous year, the overall ten-year trend is one of gradual, if moderate, fall.
The message is a little more mixed when focusing on specific illicit substances.
Looking at Greater Sydney, the biggest fall is shown in ecstasy, down 74%. Meanwhile, cannabis is down 27%. Against this, there is a 14% increase in amphetamine-related offences.
Despite this, the vast majority of illicit drug use never comes to the attention of the police. Here, self-report surveys, such as the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's national Drug Strategy Household Survey aim to capture the prevalence of drug use across the general population.
This data show almost one in five people in Australia (3.9 million, 17.9%) had used an illicit drug in the previous 12 months in 2022-23, up from 3.4 million (12%) in 2019. This may reflect a real increase in users, but it may also reflect a changing societal attitude towards illicit substances, leading to more people willing to disclose usage.
This increase was driven largely by hallucinogens like psilocybin mushrooms, which rose sharply from 1.6% (300,000 people) in 2019 to 2.4% (500,000 people). However, such substances historically have a weaker connection to organised crime groups.
By contrast, substances with stronger ties to organised crime groups - cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine - have showed no meaningful increase. Cocaine remained stable at 4.5%, heroin at 0.1%, while non-medical opioid use declined.
The picture is further complicated by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission's wastewater monitoring program. Its most recent report, released in April 2026, found methamphetamine consumption at a ten-year high and cocaine rising, with a 21% increase in the total volume of major drugs consumed nationally.
However, wastewater figures measure volume, not people. They cannot tell us if more Australians are using drugs, or whether a smaller number of existing users are consuming more frequently or at higher purity.
Taken together, the available data present a more complicated picture than the commissioner suggests.
A more balanced approach
The escalation of organised crime violence could be due to a multitude of reasons.
The cost-of-living crisis may push people to cheaper, illicit forms of legal products, such as tobacco . At the same time, global instability, particularly in key illicit drug production zones, only empower organised crime groups , who then are able to strengthen their extended reach across the globe and impact people in Australia. Then there is the many young people being recruited into criminal networks, often via new technology .
Notably, Barrett herself acknowledges crime groups are "commodity agnostic", willing to shift to whatever makes them money. If that is the case, then the violence is driven not by demand for any particular substance but by the structural nature of organised crime itself.
Australia's National Drug Strategy , in place since 1985 and widely respected internationally, has long recognised this complexity through its approach of demand reduction, supply reduction and harm reduction.
What is needed is not a renewed conversation that places the blame on users but a continued commitment to this balanced framework.
This can protect people from harm, support those who need it and direct resources towards dismantling the transnational networks that drive this violence.
Alex Simpson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
