News
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A Spilt Milk Pill Tester Explains How Things Went So Wrong
Dr David Caldicott is an emergency room doctor in Canberra who has been campaigning for pill testing and harm reduction in Australia more than a decade. Here he gives his account of how the much-lauded pill testing pilot at Canberra’s Spilt Milk music festival got cancelled. […]
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Feds’ festival intervention bitter pill for ACT Government
Minister for Justice and Consumer Affairs, and Mental Health, Shane Rattenbury has accused the Canberra Liberals of undermining the ACT’s democratic processes and endangering public health by using their Federal counterparts to force the cancellation of the pioneering pill-testing trial at next month’s Spilt Milk music festival in Commonwealth Park.…
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Why the government’s ‘draconian’ welfare bill must be voted down
Surely it is time for Australia to abandon its punitive approach to people struggling with illicit drug problems. This should include rejecting the draconian Welfare Reform Bill in its entirety. […]
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Pill testing advocates blame federal intervention for Spilt Milk trial cancellation
Advocates, academics and the ACT Greens claim federal intervention could be behind Thursday’s “shock” decision to shelve an Australian-first pill testing trial at Canberra’s Spilt Milk Festival. […]
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Pill Testing At Spilt Milk Festival Reportedly Won’t Be Happening
While the trial was heralded as a win for harm reduction among festival patrons, Gino Vumbaca, the president and co-founder of Harm Reduction Australia — the parent body behind STA-SAFE — confirmed to HuffPost Australia that the advisory body had only been made aware by the NCA of additional documentation…
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Pill testing advocate says ‘pressure’, not lack of documentation, to blame for abandoned Spilt Milk trial
“I think what’s happened is that there has been pressure placed upon a promoter, who’s a small businessman, and I think that’s probably where the root of the problem lies,” Dr Caldicott said […]
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Prohibition doesn’t work… what does “working” mean
We know that proponents of prohibition have asserted that its overall objective is to reduce drug use. And we know that this is why it is ultimately ineffective, because drug use has shown no signs of a decrease in the 40-plus years since the war on drugs was declared, and…
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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. […]
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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. […]