Applying helpful and proactive methods of safety, like welcoming testing kits and professionals into the festival atmosphere, is a very positive step in the right direction for Australia. […]

A high-profile former police chief has joined a group of doctors who want more safe centres for drug users to be rolled out in Australia’s capital cities. […]

The discussions before and during the UNGASS clearly indicated the divisions within the international community on drug issues. Even as the special session failed to usher any revolutionary changes, there was a tacit acknowledgement of the sentiment that an all inclusive debate is not possible. In an unstated manner, this UNGASS was also confronted with doubts about the consensus approach…

Due to the NSW Government’s firm stance against pill testing, talks of the initiative have commenced with senior politicians and police in other states which could see it be trialled at summer music festivals throughout the country. “We continue to progress,” said Dr David Caldecott of the pill testing proposal. […]

To us, as students, the most maddening part of the whole ordeal was the growing realization that although the drug war is waged in the name of protecting young people from the dangers of drugs, our voices are continually shut out of the debate about the negative impacts that criminalization policies have on our generations. […]

The meeting did clearly illustrate one reality: Because the US itself is violating international drug conventions by allowing individual states to legalize marijuana, America has basically resigned as the world’s lead narcotics cops. And that means countries like Canada and Jamaica, which are legalizing or plan to legalize marijuana, will be able to do so without facing threats of trade…

On the first day of the UNGASS, UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidebé gave a speech that highlighted the organization’s most recent report addressing the ways in which the world can reduce HIV infection due to drug use. Entitled “Do No Harm: Health, Human Rights and People Who Use Drugs,” the report’s advocacy for the universal implementation of a “people-centred, public…

At a minimum, responsibility for determining drug classifications and other health determinations should be completely removed from the DEA and transferred to a health or scientific body. Congress should overhaul the entire scheduling process to ensure that decisions on whether to criminalize a drug or not, and whether and how to regulate it, are decided by an objective, independent scientific…

According to Amnesty International, there were at least 165 people on death row in Indonesia at the end of 2015, and more than 40% of those were sentenced for drug-related crimes. Indonesia has some of the harshest drug laws in the world, and Jokowi has stated that no drug prisoner will receive a pardon from him. […]