News
-
Daniel Andrews has change of heart on Richmond safe injecting room trial because current drug policy ‘not working’
“There can be no rehabilitation if you are dead. If you are lying in a laneway in a gutter with a syringe that you got through the needle and syringe exchange program just here, there can be no pathway to treatment for you,” Mr Andrews said. […]
-
Melbourne safe injecting room trial set to get the go-ahead
Victoria will trial a safe drug-injecting room in inner Melbourne in a major turnaround for Premier Daniel Andrews, after calls to set up the centre amid a growing heroin crisis in the state. Minister for Mental Health Martin Foley said Cabinet approved the proposal after a review of private members…
-
State pumps extra $53 million into rehab as Yarra drug deaths surge
Expectations are growing that a reversal of Labor’s rejection of a safe injecting room in Richmond might be announced any day, with senior ministers who are in favour of the idea growing in confidence. Government sources say emergency and health services have already recorded the number of lives lost to drugs in the…
-
Renewed calls for safe injecting room as Victoria’s heroin death toll reaches 16-year high
The ABC understands the high death rate is placing enormous pressure on the top levels of Government to change its position — with a potential trial of an injecting room under active consideration. […]
-
Andrew Laming’s opposition to pill-testing at music festivals based on inaccuracies and nonsense
A tenet of his opposition to testing pills at music festivals seems to be that the information provided to people about their drugs might not always be 100 per cent accurate. It is seemingly better to have no information if you can’t provide complete, perfectly accurate information all the time.…
-
Decriminalising drugs ‘could be the answer’: former top cop
Former police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan says decriminalisation of small quantities of certain illicit substances could be the answer to WA’s drug problem. Mr O’Callaghan made the remarks during his first segment as a social commentator on Gareth Parker’s 6PR Morning Program, during which he also said the City of Perth…
-
EU: Human rights worsened with Duterte’s drug war
While the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World in 2016, published on Oct. 16, noted that human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings and the climate of impunity were already present during previous administrations, “the killings in the ‘war on drugs’ as well as the possible…
-
U.N., Human Rights Bodies Call Welfare Drug Testing ‘Cheap Shot’ At The Poor
The government’s controversial plan to drug test welfare recipients is under fire yet again, with the United Nations’ rapporteur on human rights calling the policy a “cheap shot” that will “stigmatise” the country’s poorest and most vulnerable. […]
-
Promoters pull plug on pill testing trial
“It’s a setback, it’s a delay,” Harm Minimisation Australia President Gino Vumbaca tells AJP. “Canberra has a unique situation where some major areas of land are owned by the Federal Government by the National Capital Authority, which is not an independent authority. “My understanding is that the promoter was put under…
-
Crying over Spilt Milk
This is a time where we should be crying over Spilt Milk, given it means that a festival that will be occurring in our town is less safe than it could have been and our young people are at greater risk than they needed to be. We need to be…