On Wednesday, the medical director of Uniting's medically supervised injecting centre in Kings Cross, Dr Marianne Jauncey, said there was "very much an increasing confluence of normally disparate voices basically saying the same thing: the current situation is not working". "What I've now learned in the 20-odd years I've been working [in the field] is that there are direct harms that come merely from the criminalisation of tiny amounts of personal use," Dr Jauncey said. Loading "We want to keep our children safe and we don't want people using dangerous substances. If that's our aim, you can clearly say the current system has failed." Dr Jauncey said "people really have to sit up and take notice" when the Uniting Church, lawyers, medical experts, social workers and broadcaster Alan Jones were among those suggesting the approach to criminalising the personal use and possession of illicit substances was failing.

Mr Jones said on Wednesday that he "never thought I would say this but everything we have done to date has failed. Everything. So something different has to be done". "Now we are talking about decriminalisation," Mr Jones said, and "seeing if we can rehabilitate" drug users while "[catching] those people who are producing" illicit drugs. Alan Jones said the approach to drug policy was failing. Credit:Marina Neil "Sensible people have to look at changing the system," Mr Jones said. "I know it feels wrong ... but this is the Bar Association. These are the lawyers. Should the police be spending all their time and all the resources going up to these people with tiny amounts [of illicit drugs]?" Dr Jauncey said "Alan Jones and I probably wouldn't be natural allies ... but on this particular issue I think he's spot on."

The special commission of inquiry into ice – headed by Professor Dan Howard, SC a former acting District Court judge and deputy senior Crown Prosecutor – was set up by the Berejiklian government and began public hearings last month. Loading Dr Jauncey said that "when I first started working in Kings Cross I probably had views like most people: that drugs were bad and we needed to do all we could to make people not take them". But after 20 years working on the frontline, Dr Jauncey said she understood the complexities and there were sound economic and rational reasons, as well as compassionate reasons, to "support rather than punish" people in the grips of drug addiction. Jessica Yang, president of the Australian Medical Students' Association, said the association believed "decriminalisation is an important step in allowing perception of drug-related issues as health and social issues, rather than a criminal one".