• ACT music festival drug testing decision is both defensible and long overdue

    By opening the door to the possibility of a national testing regime that will indicate if a drug is potentially lethal before it is consumed the ACT Government has done much to drag Australia’s drug risk management policies into the 21st century. […]

  • Richard Branson Advocates for Drug Decriminalization to Resolve the Opioid Crisis

    Branson notes that it is “striking that in states that allow regulated use of medical marijuana, overdose death rates are lower. It confirms what my fellow Commissioners and I have been saying for years: that the most effective way to reduce the extensive harms of prohibition and advance the goals of public health and safety is to get drugs under…

  • Liberal MP Craig Kelly Wants Australia To Reconsider Its Drug Policy

    Liberal MP Craig Kelly has said that Australia’s drug policies need to be reconsidered after it was revealed that in 2016 the nation recorded the highest number of drug-induced deaths in decades. Speaking to Perth’s 6PR radio station, the backbench MP from the Sydney seat of Hughes said that there were “elements of the Portuguese model that we should look at…

  • Govt MP urges treatment-first drugs policy

    A federal government MP, known for his conservative views, wants a rethink on how the justice system treats illicit drug users. Liberal MP Craig Kelly says Portugal has had “remarkable results” since it changed from treating minor drug use as a criminal issue to a health issue in 2001. […]

  • Duterte’s ‘drug war’ is fueling the spread of disease

    President Rodrigo Duterte’s “drug war” has left thousands dead at the hands of police, but it is also threatening lives in a different way. Front-line advocates in this city in the central Philippines say the violent anti-drug campaign is pushing users ever further underground, fueling the spread of disease by stopping efforts to get them clean needles.  […]

  • New calls to change approach to drug abuse

    David Grant, the Penington Institute’s acting CEO says the survey’s findings further highlight Australia’s existing “war on drugs” approach to addiction isn’t working. “We need to treat drug use and addiction for what it is – a serious community health issue with widespread implications for our society,” he said. […]

  • Philippines drug war alarms 39 countries in UN

    In a joint statement delivered by Iceland through representative Högni Kristjánsson on Thursday, the countries noted that the human rights situation in the Philippines continues to be of serious concern, particularly in the light of killings associated with the Duterte administration’s war on drugs. The states called on the Philippines “to cooperate with the international community to pursue appropriate investigations…

  • Law Enforcement Isn’t The Way To Stop Most Drug-Related Deaths In Australia

    The Australian Bureau of Statistics data are worrying, but they can also serve as a massive wake-up call that we need to change the way we operate. The history of harm reduction advocates breaking the rules to make change has had positive results for people who use drugs and the wider community. […]

  • Australians want more spent on drug education and treatment – survey

    Australians prefer harmful drug use to be tackled using education and treatment instead of law enforcement to a greater degree than they did three years ago, the latest results from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey show. […]

  • Pill Testing At Spilt Milk Is A Huge Win For Harm Reduction

    In a landmark decision the ACT Government has allowed a pill testing service to operate at Canberra’s Spilt Milk festival this November. This service is the first of its kind to ever occur in Australia. It is groundbreaking. By allowing it to happen, Chief Minister Andrew Barr and the ACT Government have elevated Australia to a small list of mainly European countries, some of…