• Drug Death Parent Says Teens Need to Be ‘Saved from Themselves’

    Emergency doctor David Caldicott, a senior lecturer at Australian National University, told 10 daily he has “faith” in the coroner’s court to produce well-informed and useful suggestions — but was not confident about how well they would be implemented. “I suspect the coronial report will be full of useful suggestions, many of which will be ignored by our elected representatives…

  • Government’s welfare drug-testing plans will end in disaster

    “A drug testing pilot would have delivered an ineffective, expensive and harmful regime that would have hindered, not helped Australians struggling with addiction,” noted Associate Professor Adrian Reynolds, President of the Royal Australian College of Physician’s Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine, in a celebratory statement when the proposal was first dropped. […]

  • Parents of young man who died at a music festival hope coronial inquest will lead to pill testing

    Josh’s parents have now started a foundation called Just Mossin to raise awareness of safety at music festivals. They’re hoping the music festival coronial inquest will lead to more harm minimisation strategies like pill testing. “Change is what’s needed. We don’t believe we have all the answers to it, we hope that the coronial inquest will establish what those changes…

  • Parents warn of more music festival drug deaths as inquest begins

    “So called recreational drug use will not magically disappear. In fact, in all likelihood, it will get a whole lot worse. Just saying don’t do it, we must all now agree, isn’t working. This is a health management issue. People are dying. I’m 100 per cent certain that if our son knew the risks, he wouldn’t have taken the steps…

  • Festival overdose victim took multiple pills before event ‘to avoid police detection’

    In Ross-King’s case, counsel assisting the inquest Peggy Dwyer said, the presence of police at the festival appeared to be a direct cause for her decision to “double dose” or “double dropping”; taking more than one pill at once, something she said was common. Studies in Australia have shown that almost half of people who used ecstasy at a festival had…

  • NSW music festival deaths inquest begins

    Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame will preside over the two weeks of hearings. She said: “They could be any young people who go to music festivals and partake in drugs as many young people do. These are our young people … and we owe them a proper investigation of the circumstances in which they died.” […]

  • There’s only one way to deal with drugs to make Australia safer

    The only way to ensure a safer Australian society is to legalise and regulate all drugs. This could save lives, earn huge revenue for the state and diminish the power of criminal gangs that make billions of dollars annually from the production and sale of illicit substances. This doesn’t mean a free-for-all where heroin, cocaine, opioids, ice or methamphetamines will…

  • Druggie zombie junkies, and the language battle at the heart of our attitudes towards addiction

    The roots of stigmatising language lie not just in fear but in judgements we make about other people. Many people view problem drug use as self-inflicted or an individual error of judgement. Addiction and dependency don’t develop randomly, key ingredients are needed to amplify the risk. Trauma, mental health problems, poverty and social disadvantage all contribute. […]

  • Let’s Drug Test Politicians Before Going After Welfare Recipients

    You want to make a real difference, then start at the top: obliterate anyone from the political class who tests positive for drugs, recreational or otherwise. Give the flick to anyone caught wrongly using entitlements. Give the publicly funded, house-owning, raise-getting, multiple mistake-making political class no opportunities for slip-ups because, quite frankly, they don’t deserve them. […]

  • The Case For Legalizing All Drugs

    Put simply, there is no legitimate or moral claim for maintaining prohibition today that can be backed by evidence, while centuries of evidence can show that prohibition is not only a racist, costly failure, but a direct cause of more harm than drug use could ever create. […]