News
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Report into legal cannabis short-sighted
Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm has described the decision by a Senate committee to recommend against passage of his Bill to remove Commonwealth restrictions on recreational cannabis as short-sighted. “An estimated 35 per cent of Australians admit to having used marijuana at some point in their lives, so it is…
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Splendour in the Grass: Greens push for ‘police discretion’ as drug-takers avoid criminal record
New South Wales Greens MP David Shoebridge said targeting individual drug users at festivals is a waste of police resources which would have no meaningful impact on drug supply. “What we should be doing is having the police cooperating with festival organisers and having pill testing and we could be…
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Overdose is a policy issue, not an individual one
With the growing use of drug-induced homicide charges in the US, people are reporting fears to call 911 once again. Whereas people feared arrest for drugs and paraphernalia before, now the charge could be homicide. (It also cannot be stressed strongly enough that, if not for supply side enforcement, our…
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More than 8000 people used drug testing facilities at UK festivals this summer
In a breakthrough summer for the service, and with consent from the Home Office, “front of house” drug testing facilities were available at seven festivals in England, run by not-for-profit organisation The Loop. Figures have shown more than 8000 people had drugs tested anonymously, and were subsequently given results about…
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Drugs statistics take the truth serum
What of illicit drugs? Turns out things are quieter there too. In fact, there may have been a little unnecessary panic. As Nigel Gladstone reports today, official statistics have indicated that drug crime in NSW is worse than it really is. Because of double-counting, 81,776 more drug busts than really…
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Questions over ‘war on drugs’ as data shows NSW drug busts were accidentally counted twic
Data used to back up the use of drug sniffer dogs at music festivals and praise police busts has been “double counted”, raising questions over the legitimacy of drug-related strategies in NSW. The Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) said that drug-related crime statistics for NSW have been mistakenly…
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Thousands of people use drug-testing facilities at UK music festivals
More than 8,000 people came forward to have their drugs tested at music festivals in the UK this summer. Testers found drugs four-times stronger than normal or being mixed with anti-malaria tablets and plaster. Service provider The Loop is compiling the information it gets from festivals for research it is planning to…
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War on drugs? Don’t bother
History records that prohibition never works and that trying to censor human appetites for anything addictive is doomed to fail. Announce drug laws and declare drug wars and you not only fill the prisons with a new category of innocent criminals and corrupt the justice system, but you create the…
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Shocking new statistics show cops are cracking down on us more than ever before, and critics say it is leaving us “humiliated”.
Incredible new statistics reveal a major increase in the number of strip searches on NSW residents over the past two years — and critics say the tactic is “humiliating” and a waste of everyone’s time and money. The figures, compiled for news.com.au by NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, show the number…
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Is it time for Australia to decriminalise drugs?
Just five years after Portugal decriminalised drugs in 2001, illegal drug use by teenagers had declined, the rate of HIV infections among drug users had dropped, deaths related to heroin and similar drugs had been cut by more than half, and the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction…