Maree Todd: “I don't think it is a declining city at all. It is vibrant and full of life.”

Each and every death is a tragedy, and even more so because every life lost to drug harms is preventable.

People feel more able to come forward and talk about their mental health, which is a welcome sign that stigma is decreasing.

It’s really painful that what we’ve seen is a rise in drugs deaths in 2025 compared to the year before. I would have hoped, with all of the work that we are doing across the system, we wouldn’t be facing that situation.

So we've been putting in extra funding. That alone is not going to sort it, and I guess that's what Anna's bugbear is around this issue that we've put in extra funding and it hasn't made the difference that we wanted.