Stigma Conference

The Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) is an organized collective of people who use drugs empowered to make change through direct action, courage and conviction, and fueled by the memories of the countless friends, families, and loved ones whose lives have been taken by an unjust, broken system of laws and policies.

To Find out more about DULF and their work please visit DULF’s Website

The Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) is an organized collective of people who use drugs empowered to make change through direct action, courage and conviction, and fueled by the memories of the countless friends, families, and loved ones whose lives have been taken by an unjust, broken system of laws and policies.

To Find out more about DULF and their work please visit DULF’s Website

Professor Carla Treloar is Deputy Director and Head of the Hepatitis Research group at the Centre for Social Research in Health at The University of New South Wales. Carla has been a member of the NSW and the Australian Ministerial Advisory Committee on blood-borne viruses and STIs and a member of numerous advisory committees for government, health agencies and non-government organisations. She is a board member of the International Journal of Drug Policy and an associate editor for Addiction. She has published over 140 peer review articles and been awarded over $15 million in research funding.

Carla is committed to the effective translation of research into policy and practice and to ethical and respectful conduct of research in close collaboration with affected communities. Her research encompasses the social aspects of drug use in relation to the prevention of drug-related harms particularly blood-borne viruses, engagement of people who use drugs in health and other services, critical analysis of the structure and operation of services for people who use drugs and societal attitudes towards drug use and people who use drugs.

Dr Marianne Jauncey is a Public Health Physician who has worked at the pointy end of harm reduction for decades. She has been the Medical Director of the Uniting Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) since 2008.

She has been instrumental in a number of the service’s achievements. MSIC receives increased community and political support and in 2010 became a permanent service. The MSIC now has an active consumer action group that goes from strength to strength. The Uniting Church formally decided to advocate for drug law reform and launched their campaign at Town Hall with Richard Branson in 2018. A primary care service for people who inject is soon to open upstairs above MSIC, and MSIC itself has been present for 1.25 million injections without a single death, intervening in over 10,000 overdoses.

Dr Jauncey is committed to ensuring Uniting MSIC provides unwavering support and meets the needs of its clients beyond merely supervised injection. She is not afraid to speak up or bang a few tables where it is needed. She has conducted many media interviews to improve understanding of harm reduction and the nature drug use, and is always willing to get people talking.

Associate Professor Kate Seear is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Principal Research Fellow in the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University. She is also a practising solicitor.

Kate has a multidisciplinary background in sociology, gender and law. She is the author of four books and more than 70 academic publications, exploring topics such as the links between alcohol, other drugs, stigma and the law; harm reduction and the law; and drugs, gender, and human rights. Her most recent book is Law, drugs and the making of addiction: Just habits (London: Routledge) and was the winner of the UK’s prestigious Socio-Legal Studies Association’s History and Theory book prize. Kate is also the Co-Editor of the journal Contemporary Drug Problems. speaker.

Greg Denham has been actively involved in drug policy issues for over 30 years. A former member of Victoria and Queensland Police, he has local, national and international experience, especially in the area of working with police to support harm minimisation programs. Greg has been a strong advocate for evidence-informed policy and practice as well as drug law reform.

From 2010-to 2019 Greg was the Executive Officer for the Yarra Drug and Health Forum in Melbourne. He was instrumental in gaining political support for introducing the overdose reversing drug Naloxone and campaigning for Victoria’s first supervised injecting facility in North Richmond. Greg has also worked with law enforcement in low and middle-income countries promoting the introduction of policies and practices that support needle exchange, methadone and access to condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and reduce the health burden on developing communities.

Annie is the Executive Director of Harm reduction Australia. She is also a principal of 2SqPegs Consulting – a health & social policy consulting business.

Prior to these appointments, Annie was CEO of the Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL) for 16 years until April 2016 and EO of the NSW Users & AIDS Association (NUAA) from 1994 to 2000. She is a founding member of Harm Reduction Australia, is well-published in relation to people who inject drugs, OST and BBVs and has held numerous high-level appointments. Annie has dedicated her entire professional career to promoting the health and human rights of people who inject drugs.

David Shoebridge is a Greens Senator in the Federal Parliament holding the Justice, including the Attorney-General’s Office and Drug Law Reform, Digital Rights and Defence portfolios for the party. Previously he served as a Greens MP in the NSW Legislative Council from 2010-2022. As a state, MP David established and continues to support the Sniff Off campaign in collaboration with the Young Greens to provide a strong voice against over policing under the guise of the war on drugs. David is currently working on campaigns including a strong federal ICAC, closing child prisons and a national bill to legalise cannabis

Mj Stowe is from Cape Town, South Africa where he worked as a Programme Coordinator at the South African Network of People Who Use Drugs (SANPUD) and held a research position at the University of Pretoria’s Department of Family Medicine, within the Community Orientated Substance Use Programme (COSUP). His research was situated at the interface between on-the-ground, living-experience and academia, where he worked with marginalized people who use drugs to co-design and co-develop evidence-informed healthcare interventions aimed at reducing drug-related harms.

Currently, Mj is a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), within the Kirby Institute. His PhD research is focused on understanding values and preferences for opioid agonist therapies, including long-acting injectable buprenorphine. His other research activities include assessing non-fatal opioid-related overdoses among various cohorts and implementing peer-led, mobile healthcare and harm reduction services. He also holds a research position with Loop Australia. His research is aimed at drug checking services that combine chemical analysis with health consultations, with the primary aim of reducing drug-related harms in festival and community settings

Richard Di Natale is a former Australian Senator and was the leader of the Australian Greens from 2015 to 2020. Prior to entering the Senate, Dr Di Natale was a general practitioner and public health specialist who worked in Aboriginal health in the Northern Territory, on HIV prevention in India and as a drug and alcohol clinician in regional Victoria. Richard now works as a public health advisor for cohealth, a large, not-for-profit community health service