Unharm has used freedom of information laws to reveal that the NSW Police Force (NSWPF) is much more likely to pursue legal action for drug possession or use against Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people than it is against non-Indigenous people.

Data collected by the NSW Police and obtained by Unharm under the NSW Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 shows truly startling disparities in the rate of legal action taken by police.

Across a 12 month period, the NSWPF pursued legal action for drug possession or use against 14.7 of every 1000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but only 3.4 of every 1000 non-Indigenous people, .

We found the greatest disparity was in the Central Metropolitan Region, which includes inner Sydney suburbs like Redfern, Waterloo and Woolloomooloo, where police pursued legal action against 49.8 of every 1000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but 5.1 of every 1000 non-Indigenous people.

Across NSW the police was 4.3 times more likely to pursue legal action for drug possession or use against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people than against non-Indigenous people. In the Central Metropolitan Region this climbed to 9.8 times more likely.

These findings come despite the 2020 NSW ‘Ice’ Inquiry finding the criminalisation of simple possession of drugs causes ‘significant’ harms including ‘adverse impacts on employment, earning prospects, access to housing, access to treatment, relationships and wellbeing.’

Meanwhile police attitudes about drug use dramatically diverge from data. The National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2019 found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were only about 1.4 times more likely than non-Indigenous people to have illegally used drugs in the previous 12 months (23.0% vs 16.2%). However a 2013 survey of police on their attitudes and beliefs about alcohol and other drug use found 84% of respondents said they thought cannabis was ‘widely used’ (34%) or ‘very widely used’ (50%) by Indigenous people in their area.

This report also comes after a 2023 Redfern Legal Centre analysis of NSW Police data from 2018-2022 found police were more than twice as likely to stop and search Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people than non-Indigenous people. And a BOCSAR report from the same year found that NSW police were less likely to give cautions and more likely to pursue charges for minor cannabis offences if the person was Aboriginal: 43.9% of non-Aboriginal people were cautioned, compared with just 11.7% of Aboriginal people.

You can read our report here.

Will Tregoning – CEO of Unharm

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