00:00Quiet tribute honouring the lives lost to drug overdoses.
00:09Families and advocates came together at Weston Park, among them Louise Hughes who lost her
00:13partner to an overdose 10 years ago.
00:16His death changed the course of our lives.
00:19My son lost a father he will never get to grow old with.
00:24No shared birthdays, no games of footy, no quiet chats as he becomes a man.
00:30She says while things are improving, stigma is still stopping people from asking for help.
00:35I think that, you know, more people are now coming and asking for support and when I think
00:40back 10 years ago that is probably what my partner could not do and to sort of make it
00:46more normal allows people to take that step forward.
00:50The ceremony also marks two years since the ACT made major changes to the laws, decriminalising
00:57the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs.
01:00What we're really hearing from the community is that they have seen a reduction in stigma
01:05and increase in people talking about their drug use, seeking help.
01:11Whether that's going to come through in the data at this point is not entirely clear.
01:15But some advocates say more still needs to be done.
01:19More opportunities for people to have access to harm reduction services in the ACT would
01:23certainly make a big difference.
01:25And the Police Association says the system is under pressure.
01:28We were expecting it to go backwards according to the government that this would be something
01:32that would go backwards but what we're actually seeing is that it's increasing the workload
01:36on police officers, increasing the workload on the health system.
01:38The whole idea of these drug reforms were to minimise harm and to reduce harm and we're
01:43not seeing that.
01:44It's not a common aim but different approaches on how to save lives.
Comments