Lindy Kerin reported this story on Wednesday, February 24, 2016 12:50:27

ELEANOR HALL: Nineteen years after the death of his son from a heroin overdose, Tony Trimingham is today calling for radical changes to Australia's drug policy.



Since his son Damien's death, Mr Trimingham has campaigned to help families dealing with drug abuse.



He says that despite strong opposition from some parts of the community, governments must act, as Lindy Kerin reports.



LINDY KERIN: On this day 19 years ago, Tony Trimingham's son Damien died from a heroin overdose.



TONY TRIMINGHAM: The feelings I have on this day are always very, very sad. The pain in the first 10 years was excruciating. It's almost a daily basis that you feel the sadness and the grief.



Latterly it's more a question of what might have been as the years have gone by. He was 23 when he died, he would have been 42 now.



What would have happened? Would he have dealt with his drug issues, would he have married, would he have had children?



LINDY KERIN: To mark his son's anniversary, Tony Trimingham is starting a National Family Drug Support Day, with events in six Australian cities.



At Parliament House in Canberra, he'll talk about what he's learnt during almost two decades of supporting families dealing with drug abuse.



TONY TRIMINGHAM: We don't want our kids to use drugs. As somebody who has lost a child to drugs, the last this I want to do is promote or support drug use.



So you know, we are not about saying everybody should be able to use drugs freely, we would rather they didn't, but the reality is that a lot of them do and when they do there are risks and we want to try and reduce those risks.



LINDY KERIN: Reducing the risk, he says, would see highly controversial measures like pill testing and heroin prescription programs introduced.



TONY TRIMINGHAM: Pill testing will come, I think public pressure will bring to bear on the governments of all states and territories and the Federal Government, and I think we'll see that fairly shortly.



The other measures, a bit more difficult, particularly the heroin prescription. You know drug policy is not popular. It's not popular with either party; they're not interested in reform.



And I think, you know, sadly, when we saw the injecting centre come into play, it was when Australia was in the grip of heroin in the late 1990s. We've seen the ice situation occur and of course the Government responded with an ice taskforce.



And thankfully, the recommendations of that ice taskforce was to actually help families, to support families to give better treatment facilities. But when we see the money that's coming out of the ice taskforce it still seems to be going primarily to law enforcement and to supply reduction.



So yeah, you know, it's very frustrating for those of us who've worked hard to see a better policy implemented. The war on drugs has been futile. It's been a total waste of money and all we've seen sadly are more people dying and more people getting into trouble.



ELEANOR HALL: That's Tony Trimingham, the founder of Family Drug Support, speaking to Lindy Kerin.