We definitely support most of the research findings in the ANCD report ‘Supporting the Families of Young People with Problematic Drug Use’: said Drug Free Australia spokesperson, John Barich.

‘For a long time, we have been calling for greater assistance to be given to families who are trying to cope with problematic drug use of their young people’.

DFA’s Executive Officer, Jo Baxter says: ‘Drug addiction occurs in stages and all too often young people are drawn to a regular drug-using lifestyle without realising that addiction is imminent. Usually their families are the last to know’.

‘While the legal drug alcohol is acknowledged as causing the greatest harm, it is alarming to note that 1 in 7 young people have used the illegal drug cannabis in the last 12 months. Both alcohol and cannabis are known ‘gateway drugs’ and there is scope for greater community education around this issue.’

While the report highlights the urgent need for more family rehabilitation services for drug and alcohol addiction, it needs to be stronger on primary prevention strategies.

In terms of resource allocation for rehabilitation, Drug Free Australia believes that allocations should be made with two main criteria in mind:

Firstly, that services aim to help people fully recover and do not simply maintain their addiction by providing extended drug maintenance treatments. Unfortunately in current service provision,  too many young people are told that ‘they can use drugs safely’. The fact is that in most cases illicit drug use only leads to a ‘rotating door’ – one of addiction, treatment, relapse, treatment – a cycle that is far more easily preventable in our young population.

Secondly, that families need to be included EARLY in the healing process. More resources need to be allocated to integrated family services including family counseling and, where practical, residential rehabilitation. This has been shown to help families to stay together and to work through the myriad of complexities involved.

However, so far as young people are concerned, a far more concerted effort of harm prevention should be taken in Australia - prevention strategies that work towards stopping young people taking drugs in the first place or, at least, intervening early enough to prevent addiction. This has been done successfully in countries such as Sweden and in many parts of the United States. Australia needs to look more closely at these examples, as a matter of priority.