ACT paramedics attended nearly 4000 callouts linked to alcohol and drugs in a single year, the latest ambulance surveillance data shows. Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2026, published by the Penington Institute, also counted 28 unintentional drug induced deaths in the ACT in 2024
Those numbers come from a city that has recently rewritten how police handle small amounts of illicit drugs. The figures do not show the new rules caused anything, and this article does not suggest they did. But with the Canberra drug law changes now almost three years old, it isworth looking at what the law does, what Parliament heard before it passed, and what evidence has come in since.
What the Ambulance Figures Show
Alcohol made up the biggest share. Serious intoxication led to 2070 ACT callouts in 2024, and illicit drugs and pharmaceutical medications together triggered more than 1900.
Amphetamines are the sharpest rise. Ambulance attendances involving them jumped by more than 70 per cent between 2022 and 2024, reaching 333 incidents. The ACT and Tasmania also had the highest share of callouts involving more than one substance, at almost 22 per cent.
The danger has not eased. ACT Policing said in recent public safety alerts that seven people had died from suspected opioid overdoses since August 2026.
Canberra’s drug checking service, CanTEST, reported a sample expected to be cocaine that was only a mixture of heroin and its byproducts.
Two Reforms That Are Easy to Confuse
The Canberra drug law changes arrived in two stages, close together. The cannabis law passed in September 2019 and started on 31 January 2020. The wider personal possession rules started on 28 October 2023.
The second change did not legalise the drugs it covers, and it left supply alone. What it did was cut penalties for small amounts and open more routes into health services. That difference is easy to lose, and the research later in this article suggests plenty of people have lost it.
What the Cannabis Review Found
The ACT Health Directorate published its statutory review of the cannabis law in August 2024. Its verdict was that the Act appears to be working as intended. Cannabis use stayed largely stable, with 8.7 per cent of Canberrans using it in 2022 to 2023 against 11.5 per cent nationally. Charges and police diversions fell to very low levels.
The review also flagged some problems. Wastewater data pointed to rising cannabis consumption between April 2020 and October 2023, before dropping back to pre 2020 levels in the two latest tests. Across Australia, daily use among cannabis users went from 14 per cent in 2019 to 18 per cent in 2022 to 2023. ACT Policing called the clash with Commonwealth law its biggest challenge.
The review set its own limits. It left out mental health impacts and drug driving, and it heard from only a small group of organisations.
What Canberra Drug Law Changes Allow
The Government’s public explanation is blunt on one point: the ACT has not legalised illicit drugs. Police still seize them, and driving with any level of an illegal substance in your system is still an offence.
Under the 2023 Canberra drug policy reforms, a person caught with a small quantity can attend a one hour health education session with Canberra Health Services or pay a $100 fine within 60 days. The limits are 1.5 grams each for amphetamine, cocaine methylamphetamine and psilocybin, and 1 gram for heroin. MDMA is 1.5 grams or five discrete doses. LSD and lysergic acid are 0.001 grams or five doses.
The protection is narrow. Anything above those limits can still bring fines of up to $8000 and up to six months in prison, down from two years. If a small quantity case reaches court, the maximum is a $160 fine, and a criminal conviction is possible. Penalties for supply and manufacture did not move.
The Health Minister described the reform as a health response with firm edges. She said the Government does not condone illicit drug use and that the safest option is not to take drugs at all. She also called the changes incremental and said they were not expected to shift patterns of drug use in any big way.
What Parliament Was Told
The Canberra drug policy reforms of 2021 went to a Select Committee, which reported in November 2021. It took 59 community submissions and ran an online survey with almost 780 responses. Its 17 recommendations began with passing the bill.
Witnesses did not agree. Some rejected the bill, some wanted changes and some backed it. The ACT Law Society expected little effect, since police already divert people found with small amounts. ACT Policing and the Australian Federal Police Association pushed for a staged approach, and the association warned that officers would be conflicted and open to scrutiny under overlapping Commonwealth law.
Most of the other recommendations had little to do with possession limits. They asked for far more investment in alcohol and other drug services, school drug education and training for frontline workers.
Committee Chair Peter Cain dissented from the call to pass the bill. He argued it took a narrow approach to a complex problem and that criminal penalties put some people off trying drugs. He agreed treatment needed more money and warned that decriminalisation would probably add pressure to under resourced services.
The Government replied in June 2022. It agreed to 8 of the 17 recommendations, agreed in principle to another 8 and noted 1. It rejected none. Agreement in principle is not a promise to act. On the committee’s call for an independent evaluation, the Government agreed in principle but pointed to planned reviews three years after commencement. It cited nearly $20 million in new funding for alcohol and other drug services, yet said commissioning would stay within the existing funding envelope, with any extra money left to future budgets.
How Canberra Drug Law Changes Are Being Evaluated
The Government promised an independent review two years after the reform began. It hired the Drug Policy Modelling Program at UNSW, working with the Australian National University and the Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy, a group that backed the reform. The Government paid for the work. The evaluation says its conclusions were drawn independently by the evaluation team.
It tested the reform against two aims: moving people who use drugs away from the criminal justice system, and encouraging them to use health services. So it was built to measure reach and process more than drug use across the whole population.
The Government says the final report reached it on 31 March 2026. Its summary says the reforms are working as intended, with no significant negative outcomes in the first two years. That is the Government’s description of the evaluation, not the evaluation’s own findings. The full report is the place to check the detail and the limitations.
Do People Understand Canberra Drug Policy Reforms?
A peer reviewed study in Drug and Alcohol Review asked exactly that, and the answer is mixed. Researchers surveyed about 100 Canberra stimulant users and about 100 people who inject drugs in both 2023 and 2024. Several authors are linked to the evaluation team and to the Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy, and the ACT Government funded the survey questions. The paper says the Government had no role in the analysis or reporting.
Awareness of the Canberra drug law changes grew. Among stimulant users it rose from 49 per cent to 81 per cent, and among people who inject drugs from 33 per cent to 72 per cent. Most who had heard of the law knew it covered possession, not selling or supply.
The detail was shakier. In 2024, 58 per cent of the stimulant group and 48 per cent of the injecting group said it was entirely legal to possess small amounts of drugs other than cannabis. Among those who knew about the law, 28 per cent of stimulant users and 26 per cent of injecting users thought police could do nothing and let a person keep the drugs. Between one and two fifths did not name jail as a possible outcome for 4 grams of cocaine or crystal methamphetamine.
The authors said many participants seemed to confuse legalisation with decriminalisation, and they called for sustained education. The samples were small and not random, different people were surveyed each year, and the study measured what people knew, not what they did.
Where This Leaves Canberra Drug Law Changes
The Government says the Canberra drug law changes are working as intended. The ambulance data cannot back that up or challenge it, because nothing in the sources connects the two. What the evidence does show is a law that most people have heard of and many misunderstand, in a territory where alcohol and drug callouts remain high and treatment capacity was a worry at every stage of the debate.
The clearest message is the Government’s own. The drugs remain illegal, and the safest option is not to take them. Anyone struggling with drug or alcohol use can ask a doctor or Canberra Health Services about support.
(Source: WRD News)