NSW Drug Summit 2024 cause for concern

Joe Coyte, Executive Director of The Glen Group which operates the largest Aboriginal community-controlled drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre in NSW, continues to express concern over the NSW Drug Summit 2024.

The Glen for Men has been at Chittaway Point for 30 years and The Glen for Women opened at Wyong Creek two years ago.

Coyte, who last year undertook a Churchill Fellow Trust six-week world tour to explore international approaches to assessing longer-term benefits of drug and alcohol treatment programs, said the summit needed to hear from the “experts”.

“They need to hear from the experts who are the people whose lives are impacted by drug use,” he said.

The NSW Government made an election commitment to hold a drug summit in its first term to build consensus on the way NSW deals with drug-related harms.

The summit was meant to bring together health experts, police, people with lived and living experiences, drug user organisations, families and other stakeholders to provide a range of perspectives.

It has included two days of regional forums, one at Griffith and one at Lismore, with another to be held in Sydney on December 4 and 5.

“It’s the drug summit you have when you’re not having a drug summit,” Coyte said and revealed that he had to push for invitations to both regional summits.

“It was an election commitment, but I think other priorities like cost of living have overshadowed the issue.

“I am concerned it could be a drug summit disaster; they’re not getting the right people in the room and they’re not hearing the right voices.”

Coyte invited Premier Chris Minns and Health Minister Ryan Park to visit The Glen, but both declined.

Drug summit co-Chair John Brogden has agreed to a visit.

“One of the key recommendations of my Churchill (Fellow Trust) report is the importance of giving people a voice,” Coyte said.

“And looking at how the process will impact the outcomes on the ground.

“It’s too important, we won’t get another summit for 20 years.”