National Illicit Drug Framework
Malak Foundation Launches a New National Framework to Disrupt Australia’s Illicit Drug Market
A new proposal to weaken organised crime, protect children, strengthen community safety and create a responsibility-based pathway for people experiencing addiction and homelessness
Malak Foundation Incorporated releases its National Illicit Drug Market Disruption and Responsibility Framework for the first time.
The Framework is accompanied by a concise Executive Brief prepared for the Australian Government and the Victorian Government.
Together, these documents propose a new national approach to a problem Australia has spent decades attempting to manage, but has not resolved.
Read the full policy paper:
The National Illicit Drug Market Disruption and Responsibility Framework
Read the Executive Brief:
The Executive Brief
The proposal does not advocate unrestricted drug legalisation. It does not weaken drug-driving laws, workplace safety requirements, child-protection laws or criminal penalties for violence, trafficking and organised crime.
It asks a more fundamental question:
If prohibition has not removed the illicit drug market, should Australia continue allowing criminal organisations to control its production, pricing, distribution and profits?
The current system has not eliminated the market. It has determined who controls it.
At present, criminal organisations receive the revenue, recruit vulnerable people, distribute untested products and use violence to defend their markets. Governments, families and communities then carry much of the cost through policing, emergency services, hospitals, courts, prisons, homelessness responses, mental-health services and child protection.
The Malak Foundation Framework proposes reversing that arrangement.
Why this proposal is being launched now
Australians should not be expected to accept drive-by shootings, arson attacks, extortion and intimidation as normal features of community life.
In July 2026, Melbourne experienced a concentrated series of shootings, arsons and ram raids targeting homes, hospitality venues and businesses. One reported incident became the eleventh shooting, arson or ram-raid attack in Melbourne within eight days. Police investigations have continued into whether and how individual attacks are connected.
Not every recent shooting or firebombing has been established as drug-related. It would be inaccurate to claim that illicit drugs are responsible for every act of violence.
The broader warning, however, is clear: high-profit illegal markets create criminal infrastructure.
They finance brokers, recruiters, debt collectors, corrupt facilitators and young offenders who can be directed to attack homes and businesses while senior organisers remain removed from the physical crime.
Under Victoria Police’s Operation Eclipse, reported police figures indicated that 68 people had been arrested in connection with attacks on Melbourne’s hospitality sector and that 43 of those arrested were teenagers. The alleged offending included arson, kidnapping and assault, with reported damage exceeding $40 million. Police described young people being used as criminal “foot soldiers”, sometimes for relatively small payments.
Children and teenagers should not be treated as disposable labour by organised criminal interests.
A system that allows criminal markets to recruit young people, expose families to drive-by shootings and place businesses under threat requires more than another temporary enforcement response.
It requires examination of the market that finances the criminal activity.
Australia remains a lucrative illicit drug market
The latest Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission wastewater findings demonstrate the size of the challenge.
Australians were estimated to have consumed approximately 26.8 tonnes of methylamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA and heroin during 2024–25, an increase of about 21 per cent from the previous year. The estimated street value of those four markets rose from $11.5 billion to a record $14.3 billion. Methylamphetamine represented approximately 77 per cent of that expenditure.
The ACIC described Australia as a lucrative target for transnational organised crime and warned that criminal organisations remain persistent, innovative and capable of adapting their supply methods when law enforcement disrupts existing routes.
This money does not remain harmlessly within an informal economy.
Illicit-market revenue can support:
money laundering;
violence and intimidation;
unlawful firearms;
corruption;
coercive debt collection;
child recruitment;
trafficking;
and the infiltration of legitimate businesses.
Australia must continue targeting traffickers, violent offenders and organised-crime leaders. The Framework does not propose reducing those penalties.
It proposes strengthening that effort by removing the criminal monopoly that generates the profits.
Homelessness, mental health and drug dependence are converging
The need for reform is also visible on Australian streets.
The 2021 Census estimated that 122,494 Australians were experiencing homelessness, an increase of 6,067 people from 2016. Almost one-quarter—23 per cent—were aged between 12 and 24.
More recent service data show sustained pressure on homelessness organisations.
In 2024–25, specialist homelessness services assisted almost 289,000 people nationally, including approximately 105,000 people in Victoria. Financial difficulties were reported by 118,000 clients, housing-affordability stress by 104,000 and accommodation-related issues by approximately 160,000. These figures reflect people receiving assistance and should not be interpreted as the complete number of Australians experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
The interaction between homelessness and mental health is particularly serious.
Specialist homelessness agencies assisted approximately 88,800 people with a current mental-health issue in 2024–25. More than half—45,900 people—were already experiencing homelessness when they first presented. The number of clients with a current mental-health issue has grown by an average of 5.4 per cent annually since the national collection began, almost four times the growth rate for all homelessness-service clients.
A further 24,600 homelessness-service clients were identified as experiencing problematic drug or alcohol use. Nearly four in five required accommodation assistance. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare emphasises that the relationship works in both directions: problematic substance use can contribute to housing instability, while homelessness can also contribute to or worsen substance use.
People experiencing homelessness should not be stereotyped as criminals or drug users. Economic pressure, family violence, housing shortages, trauma, mental illness and other factors are major drivers of homelessness.
However, a person who is homeless, dependent and disconnected from support may also become highly vulnerable to criminal suppliers.
Criminal networks can exploit that vulnerability by:
selling drugs on credit;
enforcing debts through threats;
using people to hold or transport products;
recruiting them into low-level supply;
or keeping them connected to street-based criminal markets.
An unpayable fine does not resolve that vulnerability.
Imprisonment for poverty does not resolve it either.
That is why the Framework proposes a Responsibility and Recovery Pathway.
A person experiencing homelessness, dependence or acute financial hardship would be able to discharge a personal-possession civil obligation through verified participation in treatment, supported accommodation, counselling, education, vocational training, case management or appropriate community contribution.
This is not the removal of responsibility.
It is responsibility designed to produce recovery, stability and public benefit rather than an unpaid debt.
Australia has considered drug reform before
The Malak Foundation Framework does not claim that Australia has never considered alternative drug policies.
Important work has already been undertaken by parliamentary inquiries, health-sector bodies, researchers, advocates and governments.
Australia21
In 2012, Australia21 brought together former political leaders, health professionals, legal experts and senior law-enforcement figures to examine Australian illicit-drug policy.
Its work argued that prohibition had driven drug markets underground and fostered a criminal industry. Australia21 called for serious examination of alternatives to prohibition and raised the question of whether governments should regulate the quality, distribution, marketing and taxation of substances already widely consumed.
The Victorian Inquiry into Drug Law Reform
The Parliament of Victoria undertook an extensive inquiry into drug law reform, receiving hundreds of submissions and examining approaches used in Australia and overseas.
Its recommendations included stronger overdose responses, economic examination of drug-policy expenditure and investigation of international developments in regulated adult cannabis markets, including their potential effects on public safety and the size of the illicit market.
The NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug Ice
The NSW Ice Inquiry produced 109 recommendations addressing drug treatment, harm reduction, diversion and personal possession.
The inquiry recommended moving away from criminalising people for small personal-use quantities and argued for a more consistent health-based approach. Subsequent NSW experience has also shown the weakness of systems that depend heavily on individual police discretion: data reported in 2024 indicated that more than 90 per cent of eligible people found with small drug quantities were still criminalised rather than diverted.
ACT personal-possession reform
In 2022, the ACT Legislative Assembly passed legislation decriminalising defined personal quantities of specified drugs.
The Australian Alcohol and other Drugs Council and the Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drug Association ACT welcomed that reform as a practical, evidence-based shift toward responding to drug use through the health system rather than the criminal justice system. The reform was accompanied by an additional $13 million investment in alcohol and other drug treatment services.
AADC’s public resources continue to focus on submissions, position statements, sector briefings and evidence-informed alcohol and other drug policy.
Federal cannabis regulation proposals
The Legalising Cannabis Bill 2023 proposed establishing a national Cannabis Australia agency to regulate cannabis strains, cultivation, manufacturing, sales, cafés and international trade.
The Bill was introduced into the Senate in August 2023 but did not proceed after its second reading was defeated in November 2024.
These previous initiatives have made important contributions.
However, most have concentrated on one part of the problem:
decriminalising personal possession;
increasing treatment;
introducing harm-reduction measures;
or regulating cannabis alone.
What is different about the Malak Foundation Framework?
The Malak Foundation proposal brings several previously separate ideas into one national structure.
It proposes:
Organised-crime market disruption as the central objective.
Decriminalised adult personal possession within defined limits.
Different access controls for substances with different levels of risk.
A controlled public-interest supply system rather than an unrestricted commercial industry.
Pricing designed to compete with and reduce the unlawful market.
A Drug Responsibility Levy across manufacturers, importers, distributors, dispensers and purchasers.
A protected Drug Responsibility Fund contributing to treatment, emergency responses, regulation, child protection and enforcement against unlawful supply.
Triple Zero (000) medical amnesty so people do not hesitate to seek emergency assistance during an overdose.
Preservation of existing drug-driving, workplace-safety, professional and civil-liability laws.
Severe criminal penalties for unlawful commercial supply, violence, contamination, corruption and child exploitation.
A Responsibility and Recovery Pathway for people experiencing homelessness, dependence or severe financial hardship.
Safeguards against replacing criminal syndicates with a powerful profit-driven drug industry.
A clear division between Commonwealth and Victorian responsibilities.
To our knowledge, no publicly available Australian proposal identified in our review has brought all these elements together in one responsibility-based market-disruption framework.
This is not being soft on drugs
The Framework does not deny that drug use can cause serious personal, family and community harm.
It does not create a right to:
drive while impaired;
attend a workplace while impaired;
endanger patients or passengers;
neglect children;
commit violence;
or cause injury to others.
Existing consequences—including loss of a driver licence, workplace disciplinary action, professional restrictions, civil liability and criminal prosecution—would remain.
The Framework instead distinguishes between:
personal possession;
dependence requiring care;
hardship requiring a recovery pathway;
conduct that creates danger for others;
and organised criminal enterprise.
This is not a softer response.
It is a more targeted one.
It directs the strongest criminal sanctions toward those who profit from violence, exploitation, corruption, contamination and the recruitment of children.
Australia has led major social change before
Australia has repeatedly introduced reforms that were initially considered politically difficult.
Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, national childcare support, Free TAFE, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, tobacco plain packaging and protections for children online all required governments to recognise that existing systems were no longer delivering acceptable outcomes.
Australia became the first country to introduce tobacco plain packaging, demonstrating that a government can impose strong controls over product presentation and commercial promotion when public health requires it.
The illicit drug market now presents another defining policy challenge.
The question is not whether Australia approves of drug use.
The question is whether Australia is prepared to leave a dangerous multibillion-dollar market under the control of criminal organisations that recruit children, distribute untested products, launder profits and commission violence.
The decision we are asking government to consider
Malak Foundation Incorporated is asking the Australian Government and the Victorian Government to:
formally consider the Framework;
establish a joint ministerial policy process;
commission legislative, fiscal, regulatory and treaty analysis;
examine controlled statutory supply designed to displace organised crime;
establish a Drug Responsibility Levy and Fund;
introduce Triple Zero medical amnesty;
create a Responsibility and Recovery Pathway;
preserve existing community-safety laws;
and retain severe penalties for organised crime and child exploitation.
The detailed legislation, regulatory bodies, levy rates and implementation arrangements properly belong to government and Parliament.
Malak Foundation is putting forward the policy architecture and asking government to undertake the next stage of analysis.
Read the proposal
This is the first public release of the Malak Foundation’s work in this area.
We invite governments, parliamentarians, police, health professionals, homelessness organisations, alcohol and other drug services, legal experts, researchers and community organisations to examine the proposal and contribute constructively to the national discussion.
Read the full policy paper
Read the two-page Executive Brief
The current system has not removed the illicit drug market.
It has determined who controls it.
Australia now has an opportunity to transfer control away from organised crime, protect children from exploitation and establish a safer, more accountable and more responsible system for the whole community.
