2024 was a big year of action for Penington Institute, driving bold changes to make our communities safer in relation to drugs.
This year, we focused on advancing meaningful progress across three key areas:
- Improving the management of cannabis in the community
- Reducing overdose in the community
- Improving knowledge about better approaches to drug issues.
Our work is driven by our commitment to smart public policy that protects the health, safety and dignity of individuals and communities.
Guided by this, we work to foster collaboration, stimulate the exchange of ideas, and promote informed decision-making about drugs and their impact.
Our 2024 highlights
Over this past year, Penington Institute:
- Empowered and educated more than 1,000 frontline workers through training, professional development, consultation, and webinar programs.
- Delivered International Overdose Awareness Day 2024, engaging people in over 42 countries in overdose awareness and prevention, with over 1,000 events held worldwide.
- Provided expert COPE (Community Overdose Prevention Education) training, allowing more than 400 frontline workers to qualify for certification, which potentially extended access to life-saving naloxone to approximately 6,500 at-risk citizens across Victoria.
- Released Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2024, prompting parliamentary and public policy discussion around the extent of damage caused by drug overdose.
- Secured widespread media coverage with over 8,000 stories about our work, amplifying the conversation around cannabis regulation, overdose prevention, and drug policy reform.
- Consulted experts on our guiding principles and approach for a regulatory framework for cannabis to guide the nation towards ambitious, safety-focused policy reform in this area.
- Created and shared original research on cannabis highlighting key evidence on the perverse, public safety-degrading impacts of current cannabis policy in Australia.
- Launched a community education campaign, Regulate It, designed to engage the community and promote conversation about the need for safe regulation of cannabis.
- Promoted legislative drug policy reform via multiple parliamentary submissions, speaking engagements, publication of original research, policymaker briefings, and webinars.
Read our Annual Review 2024 to find out more about our 2024 highlights, achievements and impact.