News
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The Left Needs to Care About the Opioid Crisis
There will be a day when our demands for justice and our calls for compassion stretch to those whom movement politics have largely left out over the past half century. A day when we do not ask, “What did they do to themselves to end up here?” And instead ask,…
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Why it’s not ‘enabling’ to make drug use safer
When people feel valued rather than judged, regardless of whether they continue to take drugs, they begin to value themselves more. Once people feel safe and cared for, it’s much easier to make changes that otherwise frighten them. As with needle exchange and heroin prescribing, frequent safe infection facilities users…
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EU Calls on Member States to Find Alternatives to Coercive Sanctions for Drug Users
This centralised decision to implement alternatives to the existing sanctions is a good omen for drug reformers. By encouraging the suspension of investigation and prosecution of drug users, and promoting the implementation of measures focusing on education, treatment and social reintegration, the European Union is alluding a decriminalisation of drug…
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Trump’s Most Terrifying Tantrum: Death Penalty for Drug Dealers Is Beyond the Pale
After a half-century of being “tough on drug dealers and drug users,” drug overdose deaths nonetheless continue climbing to record levels. Heroin and fentanyl are cheaper and more available than prescription drugs on the street, and the war on drugs has filled our prisons, affecting the lives and futures of millions of the innocent as well…
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Poke greed every day
While the question of cannabis reform has become a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’, the focus now needs to be on accelerating the process and ensuring legalisation is done right. Securing that is, as Dr. Wodak suggests, “an issue for our generation.” Many of us will have to deal…
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People are dying because we misunderstand how those with addiction think
Latent or explicit, the view of addiction as a moral failure is doing real damage. The stigma against addiction is “the single biggest reason America is failing in its response to the opioid epidemic,” Vox’s German Lopez concluded after a year of reporting on the crisis. To overcome this stigma,…
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People With Drug Offenses in Australia Face Housing Ban
Social workers and drug policy experts have expressed concern over the NSW government strategy to give criminal background checks to public housing applicants. Many say that housing is a key part of recovery, and that this won’t help those people get off drugs. […]
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Trump Administration Looking into Death Penalty for Drug Dealers
Since President Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to execute U.S. drug dealers, his administration is looking into a new policy allowing just that. The potential policy, which is being studied by the Department of Justice and the White House Domestic Policy Council, could include making the trafficking of large…
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Crime Does Pay, The War On Drugs Doesn’t
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different outcome. John Ryan from the Penington Institute weighs in on Australia’s never-ending, never-winning war on drugs. […]
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Banning drug offenders from accessing public housing sets ‘troubling precedent’
Social workers operating in Sydney’s inner city public housing estates have slammed a new policy that denies homes to those with a history of serious drug offences, saying it sets a “troubling precedent” that further marginalises people trying to leave their past behind them. […]