Harm Reduction Australia

A strong body of evidence suggests that the criminalisation of drugs has undermined the community’s ability to deal with drug use as a health issue – and this is the case for cannabis. Submissions to the ACT Government inquiry pointed out the difficulty of having an open dialogue with young people and family members who use cannabis given the stigma associated with the criminalisation of cannabis. […]

Music fans from all walks of life are united in support of pill testing, according to Eventbrite’s 2019 Australian Music Fans Report. The report surveyed over 1,130 gig-goers of all ages, and found that 77% were in support of the introduction of pill testing. Pill testing was trialed for the second consecutive year at Groovin The Moo Canberra recently. […]

The survey findings suggested that people are aware that taking drugs is risky, but without harm reduction advice they are less aware that it’s possible to mitigate those risks. 87% of clients who had used KnowYourStuffNZ’s services before said that their approach to taking drugs had changed as a result of the advice they had received. […]

Drug checking services at music festivals will never be a silver bullet for all drug related harm and deaths associated with music festivals. But the existing evidence suggests that they can make a significant contribution to reducing drug-related harm associated with these events. We should expand and evaluate this intervention. To do this political support is needed.  […]