• Music festivals responsible for minuscule percentage of drug deaths

    Counsel assisting the ice inquiry have urged commissioner Dan Howard, SC, to recommend the personal use of ice and other illicit drugs be decriminalised in NSW under a public health-focused drug policy. Under the potential recommendations, pill testing would also be trialled and the use of medically supervised drug consumption rooms would be expanded. […]

  • ‘The war on drugs doesn’t work’: A former ice user appeals for new ways to tackle addiction

    “The war on drugs doesn’t work, never has worked, never will work,” he says. He says NSW should follow the lead of Portugal and some Nordic countries which have decriminalised minor drug offences and shifted the focus to health and social support to tackle problematic drug use. “Let’s deal with them as people. […]

  • North Wales Police boss says UK should regulate cannabis and allow home grows

    Police and Crime Commissioner Jones believes that the UK’s approach to drugs needs to change. He said: “In my policing career I have never met anyone who has caused violence through cannabis, as opposed to the hundreds of violence cases I have seen related to alcohol, which is a legal substance. […]

  • US Finally Condemns and Sanctions Philippines Drug Warriors

    On January 8, the US Senate agreed to a resolution that condemns, among other things, the state-sanctioned killings and the detention of Philippines Senator Leila De Lima, a prominent critic of the drug war. The resolution also called on President Donald Trump to impose sanctions on implicated security forces and government officials. […]

  • Does the future of music festivals rely on pill testing?

    Few are better placed to comment on the impact of pill testing at the coal face than Dr David Caldicott from the ANU College of Health & Medicine and Pill Testing Australia. Twice, he has been part of a team that provided government-sanctioned on-site facilities at Groovin the Moo festival. “We knew it would work because it’s worked everywhere else it’s been…

  • A Bitter Pill: Why The Future Of Festivals Relies On Pill Testing

    “I have a theory why our opponents are so against what we do. It’s not about the pill testing itself – it runs far deeper than that,” says Caldicott. “It represents a far scarier prospect for those so committed to an approach to drugs that globally has passed its sell-by date. […]

  • Time to put politics aside and implement pill testing

    The upfront cost of drug safety testing is relatively minor; indeed, a simple reallocation of public money currently spent on drug detection dogs would more than fully fund it. It would also save costs of emergency services and hospitalisations.  Drug safety testing is a proven harm reduction measure. Drug detection dogs increase drug-related harm. […]

  • Drug Decriminalization: A Matter of Justice and Equity, Not Just Health

    The underlying reasons for a new policy direction are critically important and, on that, many well-intentioned newcomers to the chorus are somewhat off key. The central cause for drug law reform is not its relevance to health or the present public health catastrophe. It is a matter of correcting a social injustice. […]

  • ‘Lots of parents scared’: mother of music festival reveller who died takes control

    The grieving mother of festivalgoer Alex Ross-King is appealing to parents to ‘‘have a conversation with your kids that accepts reality’’ in a social media campaign about harm minimisation and drugs. Jennie Ross-King, whose 19-year-old daughter died after consuming almost three MDMA capsules, said the campaign was aimed at arming parents with information she wished she’d known before the Central…

  • ‘A chance to live’: Coroner calls for second Sydney injecting room

    A NSW coroner has called for a second medically supervised injecting room in Sydney, saying politics shouldn’t stand in the way of “sound health policy” after a young man died of a heroin overdose in a hospital toilet. Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame said Amaru Bestrin, 25, who cleaners discovered more than 10 hours after he locked himself in the…