Harm Reduction Australia

Addiction expert Dr Stephen Bright told The New Daily “it’s absolutely probable” that Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients using any of the five targeted drugs would move on other substances that are undetectable by the test. “The drugs people move to as a way of evading drug testing are often significantly more harmful than the drugs they’re testing for,” Dr Bright, senior lecturer at Edith Cowan University, said. […]

Drug testing of welfare recipients has been on the LNP agenda for quite a while now. As an ex-drug user who has successfully become stable and clean for a few years now, I can see that this idea will be impossible to orchestrate and carry out successfully without chaos and sky-high expense. […]

A coroner has rejected NSW police claims that reports on the force’s strip-search procedures are beyond the scope of an inquest into drug-related deaths at music festivals. Deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame on Thursday said she was satisfied the inquest could appropriately consider what police search practices had on the method of consumption of Ms Ross-King and young festival patrons in general. […]