Dr Alex Wodak AM is a physician who was Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney where he is now an Emeritus Consultant. Dr Wodak and colleagues began Australia’s first needle syringe programme and Australia’s first medically supervised injecting centre when both were still pre-legal. He was the Foundation President of the International Harm Reduction Association (1996-2004) and is now President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation.

What is our national drug policy? How did we come to have this policy? Does our national drug policy work? Could a different policy be more effective? These are all important questions. But the most important and most fundamental question is: should someone with a minority taste in psychoactive drugs be punished for using that drug? The case for global drug prohibition has begun to collapse. In 2012 several countries started to develop their own drug policy. The threshold decision required is to re-define drugs as primarily a health and social issue and therefore in need of far greater funding.