The drug policies in NSW aren't working, so we need a new summit to look at harm minimisation strategies that could include amnesty bins, pill-testing and the end of the use of sniffer dogs, writes Jo Haylen.

Over the past 12 months seven young Australians believed to have taken ecstasy have died - six of them were at music festivals. This week's episode of Four Corners clearly showed that despite NSW's zero-tolerance approach, we're losing the war on drugs.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicates that, nationally, the rate of people aged 14 and over using recreational drugs has remained relatively steady at 14-15 per cent from 1993 to 2013. Yet, as Four Corners showed, between 2006 and 2015, arrests for ecstasy use in NSW rose from 710 to 3,039, compared to arrests for trafficking in the same period, which rose from 402 to 567.

We're targeting drug users, but with little impact further up the supply chain.

Alarmingly, hospitalisations of people in NSW aged 16-24 following ecstasy use has almost doubled from 413 in 2010 to 814 in 2015.

Our young people are too important for us to ignore the evidence on drug policy. We're losing too many kids and we need a new way.

Here in NSW, the Government likes to talk up its credentials as tough on crime, but the truth is their approach is doing little to stem illicit drug use or to protect the young people who take them.

The Government is committed to the use of sniffer dogs at music festivals, venues and on Sydney streets, and is now threatening to shut down music festivals that don't fix the problem. The Police Minister, Troy Grant, refuses to look at alternatives raised by health and justice experts, including amnesty bins or pill-testing that work in other countries.

I don't doubt Minister Grant's concern, but we can't stick our head in the sand and pretend we're making headway.

I'm not alone in this view. On Four Corners, Mick Palmer, a former Australian Federal Police commissioner, and Nicholas Cowdery, a former Director of Public Prosecutions here in NSW, both expressed strong concerns that the current approach wasn't working. Mr Palmer called it a failed experiment.

What is clear is that we need to approach drug use as a health issue, not a law and order issue.

A drug summit, convened by the NSW Government, and engaging people from across government, the not-for-profit sector, health and justice, would allow us an opportunity to properly examine all the evidence and find the right mix of responses.

As well as the current strategy, the summit should look at harm minimisation strategies including amnesty bins, pill-testing or the end of the use of sniffer dogs.

We need to continue to educate young people about the risk they take every time they take drugs, but also acknowledge that some will still do so. We could say those people don't matter, that they made a poor decision and should pay the consequences if something goes wrong. But that's a cruel response.

Other countries, such as Portugal, have gone as far as decriminalising drug use, instead adopting a health-centred approach, and the evidence emerging from that experience deserves careful consideration.

We need to take a hard look at the use of sniffer dogs at music festivals. There are stories of young people putting themselves at risk because they see the dogs and ingest all their drugs at once to avoid a criminal record. This behaviour only increases the risk of an overdose and puts lives in danger.

Sniffer dogs don't have a high accuracy rate. The Minister's own response to a question in the Parliament was that in 2014, across NSW, there were 14,869 searches undertaken following a dog indication. In 11,043 of those searches, no illicit drugs were found. Three quarters of the time, the dogs are wrong and lead to unnecessary and negative interactions between young people and police.

Amnesty bins would give young people an opportunity to discard their drugs without the fear of prosecution.

Pill testing, which involves kits being distributed to users at music festivals, can provide critical information about the pills they're about to take. Pill testing can be supervised, giving an opportunity to share information that lets young people know the risks.

A harm-minimisation approach isn't a sole solution to drug use in our community, but it must be part of the mix of policy measures we consider to address this complex issue.

I spoke about drug reform at our state conference because I think there's no better place to argue about policy. My view is in the minority in my party but I spoke up to voice the views of countless young people across Australia.

In the NSW Parliament, the Police Minister this week levelled the accusation that I'm encouraging young people to take drugs. Nothing could be more irresponsible or further from the truth.

I'm a mother and I don't want my son to take drugs. I don't want anyone's children to put themselves at risk. I know that the most effective tool we have in the war on drugs is the conversations we have with our kids every day about how precious and fragile their lives are.

As a mother, I also know I can't control every decision my son will make. If he does make the choice to take drugs, I want to know that he's as safe as he can be, after being fully informed of the risks.

I have raised this issue because as Four Corners showed, when it comes to illicit drug use, what we're doing isn't working. Let's end the deaths and hospitalisations. Let's find another way.

Jo Haylen is the Member for Summer Hill in the NSW State Parliament and former Mayor of Marrickville.