Harm Reduction Australia (HRA) is a national organisation for individuals across Australia to join together in their commitment to reducing the health, social and economic harms potentially associated with drug use. Making your voice heard is crucial if we are to achieve more humane, effective and balanced drug policies in Australia and beyond. To help join now and show your support.
To save lives, we must re-think our approach to drugs
Building a coordinated, evidence-based approach is the best way to ensure everyone’s safety. Moreover, these approaches are politically popular. A majority of people in NSW support pill testing and the safe injecting centre in Kings Cross. They are rational and realistic policy initiatives aimed at keeping people safe. […]
Time for clear thinking on party pills
In a similar vein, it is worth looking at the growing body of evidence about pill testing programs, especially in Europe. In the ACT a trial showed some potential benefits in terms of harm reduction and little evidence of making things worse. Ms Berejiklian should ask the panel to look at the evidence and consider whether trials of pill testing would make sense. […]
Gladys Berejiklian must listen to Adriana Buccianti after Defqon.1 deaths
It’s time the Berejiklian Government listened to grieving families, former police and experts all calling for more effective action on drugs-related deaths at festivals. Specifically, it’s time they entered the real world by shifting from a tin-eared approach of criminalisation on drugs to one of harm minimisation. […]
Defqon.1 deaths: sniffer dogs don’t deter revellers from drug use, researchers find
The presence of sniffer dogs at music festivals is almost completely ineffective at persuading revellers to abstain from drugs and could place them at greater risk of harm, according to new research that comes after the death of two people at a Sydney dance music festival. While the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, faces criticism for again ruling out pill testing, instead vowing to ban the Defqon.1 festival, the paper by researchers Jodie Grigg, Monica Barratt and Simon Lenton brings the effectiveness of the government’s hardline stance into question. […]
