Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, said he was “stunned” by the decision to “strip people with alcohol and drug problems of income support payments”. For many people who use drugs, or are aware of the reality outside of the dominant narrative, this policy proposal is hardly shocking. […]

A growing number of festivals are now openly discussing a new approach to drugs, based on information and harm reduction rather than criminal justice. This shift in attitudes is coming at a very welcome time. Recent developments in the European drug market have seen an unprecedented rise in the strength of ecstasy tablets, with a number of recent reports of adverse…

The people taking these cheap, poisonous products are largely young, poor and marginalised, and they’re not being protected. Wealthy, middle-aged people take plenty of drugs too, it’s just that they can afford better ones. We can’t keep relying on “just say no” as a model, it’s irresponsible. Our job as a caring society is to seek to mitigate and reduce harms…

Labor will oppose the Turnbull government’s plan to drug test new welfare recipients on Newstart and Youth Allowance.The proposal provoked an outcry from the welfare sector, which labelled it a demonisation of those on social security. A Melbourne University drug expert, Assoc Prof John Fitzgerald, described the policy as “wacky”. […]

“While the announcement for changes to the mandatory death penalty in its limited form to drug trafficking is a welcome move, it must only be considered a first step towards total abolition,” Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu, executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia, said in a statement. […]

Funding punitive law enforcement targeting drug use and related social harms, rather than redirecting that funding towards addressing the other underlying causal factors for drug use and dependency in the first place, simply buries the problem under increasing amounts of government expenditure but never truly improves it. […]

Much of American policy is designed to stop the flow of illicit drugs, which Dr Wodak said was close to useless in countries such as the United States and Australia, which have large borders. To address the growing problem, Dr Wodak made six recommendations, including increasing the availability of medical cannabis in Australia. […]

Tasmania needs to listen to the experts — retired judges, magistrates, police commissioners, health experts and ex-premiers — and reorient resources towards preventing addiction. We need to intervene early, educate, fund more drug treatment programs and court mandated diversions, and decriminalise the personal use of drugs. […]

Speaking of crime, what impact has ice had on rates of violent crime? A big one, according to the media. However, the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research reports a recent downward trend in crimes such as robbery — down by 63 per cent since 2000 — which wasn’t the case during the heroin crisis of the 1990s, arguably the…