Responding to today's announcement of the NSW Government's response to the NSW Drug Summit Report, Emma Maiden, Uniting NSW.ACT's Director of Advocacy and External Relations said: "The whole community will be shocked and disappointed at the lack of vision and boldness in the Government's response to the Drug Summit.
"We saw the Bob Carr Labor Government meet the moment of the original Drug Summit in 1999 but the lack of leadership to meet the moment of the latest Drug Summit by the current government is profoundly disappointing.
"The NSW Government have let down the community down today.
"This response does not reflect what the community and the experts wanted.
"They have squibbed it.
"The mums and dads of NSW, the people who have lost someone they love, the people who can't access treatment and the many, many organisations, officials and experts all came to the Drug Summit last year with goodwill, hope and high expectations for real, meaningful and positive change.
"Law enforcement, health experts, the community sector, academics, AOD specialists.
"This response today is really out of touch with community attitudes on these issues and is a real let down.
"While we welcome the reforms to the EDDI scheme- this was already going to happen as part of the two-year review into the scheme.
"In terms of an "investigation into cannabis driving laws"- we don't need another "investigation" we need the action already identified by the Cannabis Inquiry.
"First Nations people and regional communities are notably absent from this long-awaited response from government. Considering the failures of First Nations inclusion at the Drug Summit itself, this is a particularly hurtful exclusion of the people most disproportionately impacted by our unfair drug laws.
"We, along with everyone who contributed to and participated in the NSW Drug Summit in good faith, are fundamentally let down," Emma said.
"The response today fails to adopt, resource and implement the 56 recommendations of the Drug Summit Report in full - to comprehensively deal with our unfair drug laws and the very real harm they cause.
"This weak response today is a win for bad politics over good policy" she said.
"This response fails to measure up to the bravery and efforts of the Carr Government 25 years ago.
"The reason we had a Drug Summit was that the status quo wasn't enough, wasn't working and was doing very real harm.
"This latest disappointment is only going to lead to further harm, further stigma in NSW and that needs to be worn by the NSW Government.
"The community, the experts, the sector, and the people of NSW deserve so much better than this.
"Despite this - we will continue to, along with everyone in the community and sector, campaign for real, meaningful reform to our unfair drug laws in NSW," Emma said
Uniting has run the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Kings Cross for nearly 25 years and has spearheaded the Fair Treatment campaign for fairer drug laws for over seven years.
