Drug users can’t shirk responsibility. If a social media influencer posts Snapchat pics of themselves using cocaine with their glamorous friends, they are participating in a supply chain dripping in blood. So many opinion makers and ordinary, otherwise law-abiding members of the public are willing to ignore the harm done by the pernicious crime gangs that their drug consumption supports. Pop stars, professional football players, even members of the British royal family, by their actions and comments, endorse illicit drug use in a way that normalises it.

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But there is no fair-trade cocaine.

Corrupt individuals in the customs and logistics sector, accountants and solicitors willing to ignore their professional obligations, money remitters and banks, luxury goods retailers and increasingly sophisticated technology used by offshore-controlled organised criminal networks mean that law enforcement will struggle to stay on top of the problem as it expands.

We need to conceptualise the drug market as we do all others: supply increasing to meet demand. Law enforcement agencies will continue to do their best to suppress supply – but they can’t be expected to combat demand.

Real and lasting demand reduction will require a significant change to social attitudes towards drugs. Recent history shows it is possible.

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I’m embarrassed to say that in my youth many of my cohort used to drive drunk and boast about it. Twenty years later, my daughters and their friends would be aghast if any of their number did that. Drink-driving quickly became very uncool, even though it involves the most pervasive drug.

Where are the public education campaigns about the indirect harms of drugs? We need more society stakeholders to step up: the large corporates that now recognise they have a role in influencing social policy; professional sport that is intrinsically invested in public health and can have impact in public health messaging; construction and extractive industries that rely so heavily on a young, healthy workforce and can influence the conduct of their employees away from work; the media, which can choose to portray organised criminals as glamorous thrillseekers or corrupt lowlifes who have no redeeming features; and academia, which can create new knowledge and evaluate the impact of policies here and abroad.

Governments must also do more. They should drive the collaborations and manage the multiple projects that will emerge. The energy and innovation that these diverse sectors apply to their core businesses will undoubtedly generate novel solutions to a problem that otherwise risks overrunning us.

In the meantime, lifesavers and fishermen will continue to pick up drugs floating in our littoral zone and law enforcement will continue to lock up the operators within reach who make mistakes.

Michael Barnes is the NSW Crime Commissioner.