HAYLEY SORENSEN

diction. Again and again it has been told the evidence is clear. If we are serious about minimising damage done by drugs and alcohol we need to stop treating addicts like criminals and acknowledge substance abuse for the health problem it is. Amity Community Services’s Nicola Coalter has been at the frontline of addiction in the Territory for years.

At a public forum in Darwin recently, she told the committee the shame and stigma users feel prevents them from seeking out treatment.

The language we use to describe them is a big part of the problem – calling people with substance abuse issues “druggies” – or the favourite of the Gunner Government “problem drinkers” – just sends them further from help.

“These are not problem people, these are people who have problems and they are only using coping mechanisms to manage their lives,” she told the committee.

Attitudes like the ones expressed by the “lock them up brigade” also make governments reluctant to initiate common sense, proven harm reduction strategies such as pill testing at festivals.

Calls earlier this year to pill test at BASSINTHEGRASS were shut down.

An NT Police spokeswoman claimed, without evidence, that testing would send a message of “tacit approval” of drug

”If we are serious about minimising damage done by drugs and alcohol we need to stop treating addicts like criminals”

use and Attorney-General Natasha Fyles said the NT Government had no plans for its introduction.

Deaths by overdose like the one that killed Georgie are 100 per cent preventable.

Decriminalising use and possession of all drugs would help. It’s not as radical as it might sound – decriminalisation has worked in other parts of the world for decades.

To borrow a thought from Banyan House chief executive Leon Galitis, the real criminal act is to lock people up for what is in reality a health and wellbeing issue.

It’s too late for Georgie. It isn’t for others.

Hayley Sorensen is a regular columnist for the