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“Despite best efforts…, we have achieved virtually nothing,” says former AFP Commissioner Mick Palmer. “We’ve aggravated harm rather than minimised it. We’ve demonised users… The reality is, people are going to take ice. It’s time to take the risk and trial new options because, as evidence demonstrates elsewhere, it’s working.” […]

If we want a better 21st century drug policy, we need to grapple with what drug experience means and not simply assume that a drug is a drug is a drug—and that being high is always worthless and inevitably leads to unhappiness in the end. […]

Over the past year, the failure of Thai drug policies to reduce the use and supply of drugs, particularly methamphetamine, has been the subject of much debate in judicial circles. […]

Duterte, 71, won power in a landslide after a campaign dominated by threats to kill tens of thousands in a war on crime. […]

Two leading drug reformers want drug consumption rooms to include inhalation rooms for those who smoke illicit substances such as ice, crack and heroin. […]

Vietnam has sentenced a 73-year-old Australian woman to death for drug smuggling. […]

Queensland’s most senior judge has called on the state government to consider the “unintended consequences” of its predecessor’s punitive drug law changes after the “distressing case” of a young mother whose jail time for dealing ice was more than doubled. […]

“DMT should certainly not be in the same class as a drug like methamphetamine and heroin,” Caldecott told Australia’s SBS, an Australian national TV station. “[It’] could be argued, quite vigorously that it has potential through therapy to benefit and therefore doesn’t belong in that class.” […]

Psychologists and psychiatrists have been studying hallucinogens for decades — as treatment for things like alcoholism and depression. But support for studies dried up in the 1970s, after the federal government listed many psychedelics as Schedule 1 drugs. Now researchers are giving the drugs another look. […]

Once we understand that addiction is neither a sin nor a progressive disease, just different brain wiring, we can stop persisting in policies that don’t work, and start teaching recovery. […]

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime released its 2016 World Drug Report. According to the Open Society Foundations, the report “reinforces prohibitionist and law enforcement-based strategies that continue to perpetuate violence, instability, and health crises across the world.” […]

The harms being caused by the war on drugs can no longer be ignored. It is time to leave behind harmful politics, ideology and prejudice. It is time to prioritise the health and welfare of the affected populations, their families and communities. […]

Discontent is growing internationally with prohibitionist drug policies. The UN must heed NGOs, experts and agencies advocating alternative approaches. […]

Rates of marijuana use among Colorado’s teenagers are essentially unchanged in the years since the state’s voters legalized marijuana in 2012, new survey data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment shows. […]

What our research did find is that both training of pharmacists and the cost of Naloxone were an important barrier to access. […]

Abstinence from certain drugs is an absolutely legitimate personal choice, and one that should be respected. But abstinence should never be imposed on others. For many people, using a harm reduction approach that includes less problematic substance use can improve health and quality of life. […]

Research has shown that drug checking, paired with peer education, is effective in that it prevents people from taking adulterated or potentially more harmful substances. […]

In their report, “Taking a New Line on Drugs,” UK experts list the top 10 most harmful drugs, and in what ways each specific drug is most harmful. […]

The Royal Society for Public Health and the UK Faculty of Public Health, two of the UK’s most highly respected public health bodies, have called for the decriminalisation of possession of all drugs in a bold joint report, Taking A New Line On Drugs. […]

Indonesia plans to put 16 convicts to death after next month’s Muslim Eid holiday, an official said Tuesday, June 14, confirming executions were set to resume after a hiatus. […]

‘I don’t want others to suffer from the pain and memories,’ said Ray, 66. ‘Children need protection but the law is not stopping them taking drugs, so we need a safer approach.’ […]

The Global Drug Survey finds that legal highs are not seen as safer and will most likely be used in long term by marginalised people. […]

Giving people with drug issues the equivalent of rest, water and Tylenol will not protect them—or anyone else—from our stagnant pools of poverty, sexism, racism and hopelessness. […]

It takes two minutes to complete & will help with future harm reduction initiatives. […]

While many pro-legalization politicians back up their legalization stances with the benefits regulated cannabis could potentially bring, Ingraham writes, Trudeau’s argument centers on reducing harm. […]

The budget has been allocated for the death penalty. We still have 58 drug convicts on the death row list, and another 152 death row inmates for crimes such as murder, terrorism and others, said Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo. […]

Experts say Australians should be better informed that they are safer taking “traditional” illicit drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy than they are using synthetic cannabis and other newer, novel psychoactive substances. […]

We have seen what happens when you take this kind of approach to drug policy. Shambhala Music Festival consistently has one of the best safety rates of any festival in North America when it comes to overdose-related medical transports. […]

Global Drug Survey finds Australians use cannabis, ecstasy, opioids and nitrous oxide more than amphetamines, including ice and speed. […]

The mesothelioma death this week of widely respected drug-law reformer Brian McConnell has thrown the spotlight back on the dangers of Mr Fluffy asbestos, with Mr McConnell having lived for 45 years in an asbestos-contaminated house. […]

The Drug Policy Modelling Program’s briefing note on drug decriminalisation in Australia. […]

Banning psychedelic drugs is likely to be counterproductive. Just as banning sexual activity does not stop sexual desire, outlawing psychedelic drugs does nothing to change the innate need for transcendent experiences. […]

There is no way the 2020 targets will be met and ending AIDS by 2030 realized if key populations continue to remain invisible in the global HIV response in the same way they have been in the political declaration. […]

According to a new Quinnipiac University Poll, nearly 90 percent of Americans—81 percent of Republicans and 94 percent of Democrats—support legalizing medical marijuana. […]

The sad truth is that many of deaths could have been prevented with better access to drug testing to prevent ingestion of adulterated or unknown substances, better legislation surrounding harm reduction, and better discussion about drug use. […]

To tackle HIV rates we must give a voice to people prevented from accessing treatment due to social stigma. […]

Could Canada be to cannabis what France is to wine? […]

The rising opioid death rate is alarming, but it’s time they didn’t take sole blame for fatalities. […]

Pleasure is not a poison, and what we need to worry about is addiction, organ damage, disease, behavioral dis-inhibition, impaired driving, and other genuine dangers. Politicians can turn their attention to ending excess joy after they solve actual problems, like inequality, poverty, and pain. […]

Our only alternative to the nightmare of Donald Trump’s drug policy is depressingly mediocre. So, drug policy reformers, here’s the bad news—no matter who gets elected, we’re headed backwards the next four-to-eight years! […]

The chief executive officer of the New South Wales Users & AIDS Association, Dr Mary Harrod, pointed to the need for a much wider roll-out of naloxone, the drug used to treat overdoses. […]

There’s one element of harm reduction that some say works better than all others, but it is also nearly impossible to implement in an official capacity: drug testing kits. […]

As the once-vilified drug becomes more accepted, researchers around the world are trying to understand how it works and how it might fight disease. […]

Police Minister Rene Hidding did himself and the Tasmanian community no good at all last week with his arrogant, dangerous dismissal of a sensible idea by the Greens for pill testing to be available at music festivals. […]

Let’s take ethical responsibility for our guilty pleasures by committing to harm reducing political advocacy at the local, national, regional, and global levels inter alia! […]

“We can’t arrest and incarcerate addiction out of people. Not only do I think it’s really inhumane, but it’s ineffective and it costs us billions upon billions of dollars to keep doing this.” […]

Duterte has been suspected of playing a role in many killings of suspected criminals by motorcycle-riding assassins dubbed the “Davao death squads”. Human rights watchdogs say he has not been criminally charged because nobody has dared to testify against him in court. […]

The evidence is “overwhelming,” said James A. Goldston, the executive director of the New York-based Justice Initiative, which will release the report on Tuesday. “In case after case, army actors and federal police have been implicated.” […]

Approaches such as needle and syringe programs are based on human rights principles. They are inexpensive, easy to implement and have a positive impact on individual and community health. […]

When I asked the developer, Chris Oelerich, if he thought about the counter-arguments against harm-reduction, that it “enables” drug use, he said, “If people are going to keep using heroin, then making it harder isn’t a great strategy.” […]

What these outlets can’t grasp is the stupidity of aiming at a succession of particular drugs, as opposed to far more dangerous mixtures of these drugs and—above all—the economic, social and psychological circumstances in which people use drugs. […]

If the UN were really serious about bringing drug lords to justice and hitting them where it hurt, it could simply have resolved to end the financial secrecy that criminals use to cover their tracks and hide their money. […]

Deputy Director Tatyana Guzenkova stated that the HIV crisis in Russia is not an actual epidemic, but rather part of an “information war” against Russia. Her coworker, Igor Beloborodov, blamed condom manufacturers. […]

We seem to still sort of function under this mythology that most people can do fine if they simply go into a detox or a 28-day rehab and they will come out and they will be fine. […]

We are civilized users. It’s possible to be active in volunteer work and even political work while using. We get the respect we deserve, but it’s taken 22 years. […]

Data from government-sponsored surveys show that teenagers are less likely to use marijuana and, if they do, less likely to abuse it than they were before this sea change in state policy. […]

Addiction does discriminate: it hits hardest those who are already down or feel that they will never be able to rise. […]

Legal highs have become victim to a new moral panic. All the new act will do is drive people towards illegal drugs and alcohol, the most harmful substance of all. […]

From Republican Donald Trump to Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and candidates from the Green and Libertarian parties, too, the Marijuana Policy Project sees promise toward the federal legalization of pot. […]

There is a need to shift the objectives of drug policy away from process measures such as crop eradication statistics, arrest rates, seizures and imprisonment statistics. Governments need to explore and focus on solutions that promote public health, human rights and citizen engagement and participation. […]

“The evidence shows testing will keep our young people safe from harmful drugs and it’s got the support of the Police Association,” a Greens spokeswoman said. But Rene Hidding was unswayed by the Police Association’s support for the Tasmanian Greens’ proposal to hire staff and purchase equipment to conduct pill testing at festivals. […]

For decades, the entire drug policy debate was stalled. Harm reduction was a fringe concept. Now, we have USA Today endorsing safe injection facilities and the New York Times supporting marijuana legalization. It’s increasingly difficult to find someone to quote who favors arresting and jailing users, or who opposes access to the overdose antidote naloxone on moral grounds. […]

The marijuana legalization movement is in full swing this year, with 14 states currently considering ballot initiatives to legalize for either recreational or medical purposes. While 23 states already have legal marijuana systems in place, public opinion is quickly shifting in favor of cannabis reform and voters in states across the US will have the opportunity to continue the momentum in 2016. […]

Users warn withdrawal from drugs may lead to violence while experts say black-market dealers will cause greater harm […]

You can now place a bet on cannabis becoming legal in the UK within the the next ten years. […]

The parry and repost from the drug markets may not be entirely predictable, but will undoubtedly continue to back the Government into a corner if it continues to act in the same way. An alternative, better future of drug policy is possible; what is needed is some clear thinking. […]

In many respects cannabis will be seen as the test case for further drug reform, so it’s crucial that we get this one right. […]

The UK has enacted sweeping legislation to ban so-called “legal highs” like Spice or “Black Mamba.” Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) are often intended to mimic “traditional” drugs like marijuana and cocaine while circumventing laws, but their effects are sometimes riskier. […]

Any additional tools that we can have in dealing with what’s a devastating and potentially deadly disease are necessary. […]

As the US considers reforms such as the legalization of marijuana, understanding the impact of US drug policy on South American farmers is more important than ever if we’re serious about undoing the damage. […]

“We are certainly not wanting to encourage drug use, quite the opposite, but understanding how it works and why it works is vital.Drug testing at festivals overseas has been extremely successful and getting knowledge through this is our best shot at tackling this massive problem.” […]

America’s favorite snarky “news” source, the Onion, has never been short of ammunition when it comes to the War on Drugs. The only trouble is, in this field it can be hard to know when parody stops and reality begins… […]

David Shoebridge says waste ‘extraordinary’ after figures show NSW police spent an average of more than $9m per year since 2010 on drug detection unit. […]

Under the Psychoactive Substances Act it will not be a criminal offence for someone to possess for their own consumption recreational drugs too dangerous to be legally sold to the public. […]

A group of students from Victoria University are joining the push for drug testing to protect them and their friends from taking potentially fatal chemicals in lieu of actual drugs. The Wellington arm of Students for Sensible Drug Policy wants the New Zealand Government to allow drug testing at festivals. […]

Many issues were discussed at the 2 March 2016 Drug Summit organised by the Greens leader Richard Di Natale at Parliament House.To me the two main topics included the decriminalisation of drugs, similar to the Portuguese model.The other key topic for me was giving consideration to introducing more supervised injecting centres in Australia. […]

Branson is a long-time believer that the war on drugs approach should be rejected and instead decriminalisation of drug possession and use should be introduced in its place. […]

During the ASPI research, discussions with the publicly funded drug treatment facilities identified that annual person-bed costs were in the 32 to 35 thousand dollar range, while a 2015 Business Insider report identified that the average annual cost of a person-bed in a jail was more than $106,000. A conservative cost savings of more than $70,000 per person-bed, not including the other obvious positive aspects of health care managing a health issue. […]

To many observers, the US’s drug scheduling seems arbitrary. To understand why, it’s instructive to look back at how the schedules were made. […]

The Federal Drug Control Service faced international criticism for claims about the “success” of Russia’s regressive drug policies. Russia has one of the world’s highest rates of heroin consumption, and, following Russia’s invasion of Crimea and blocking of methadone treatment, there have been over 100 overdose deaths on the peninsula. Russia has also been credited with helping to scuttle last month’s UNGASS summit. […]

John Halpern, psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that western cultures have adopted such a stringent attitude out of fear and that, “with the absence of facts, fear may reign.” […]

‘We’re out, we’re proud, and we’re not going anywhere.’ That’s how we’re going to change people’s perceptions. We’re going to introduce ourselves as drug users, and we’re going to show how there are functional drug users and responsible drug users.” […]

The Greens’ leader Richard Di Natale used the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy conference in Sydney to announce a $10 million Harm Reduction Innovation Fund. […]

There’s been a lot of polling on the topic lately. […]

Drug war money has become a notable source of funding for law enforcement interests. Huge government grants and asset-seizure windfalls benefit police departments, while the constant supply of prisoners keeps the prison business booming. […]

There’s a cultural problem to address, a stigma about addiction. The doctors who are teaching us medicine have not gotten this education. […]

In the words of David Simon, crime reporter and co-creator of The Wire: “The drug war is a holocaust in slow motion.” […]

More than 20 nonprofit groups, most of which work explicitly with gay and transgender communities, are being blocked from participating in a major UN session on AIDS by a coalition of Islamic countries, as well as Russia and two additional African member states. […]

Yarra Mayor Roberto Colanzi has thrown his support behind a safe injecting room being installed in Richmond, Melbourne, to combat ice and heroin dealing. […]

It’s great that the US is talking about opioids and overdose. But—just once—I would love to hear any of these politicians mention some concrete steps that we can all take today. Things that are free. Things that are simple, easy and quick. […]

Redirecting 7.5 percent of the money spent on the war on drugs could reduce HIV-related deaths by 94 percent, a recent report by U.K.-based NGO Harm Reduction International, “The Case for a Harm Reduction Decade: Progress, Potential and Paradigm Shifts”, found. […]

The National Narcotic Board declared that it would rehabilitate 100 000 drug users by the end of 2015. It is not surprising, considering the lack of sufficient infrastructure, resources and qualified staff, that this target was not reached. Moreover, it reflects the government’s continued misunderstanding of the nature of addiction itself, which cannot be adequately addressed while drug users continue to be criminalised. […]

The problem has been amplified, public health experts say, by the stigmatization of the drugs, partly from fear of what has happened in the United States, where opioid misuse is a growing cause of death. […]

Any more time wasted on chasing the illusory objective of a drug-free country, region or world should increasingly be recognised as ideologically driven self-indulgence. […]

NSW Premier Mike Baird opened the Medicinal Cannabis Symposium in Western Sydney and gave an opening address on Saturday. The symposium was run by United in Compassion, a company run by Daniel Haslem’s mother, Lucy Haslem. Daniel Haslem died of terminal cancer. He campaigned extensively for cannabis legalisation till his death. […]

Indonesia is quietly preparing to execute 15 death row inmates, including 10 foreigners jailed for drug crimes, according to local media accounts, lawyers and activists. The group reportedly includes Chinese and Pakistani nationals, and inmates from three African countries: Nigeria, Senegal, and Zimbabwe. […]

Two fingers on Lim Jit Wee’s right hand are ugly stumps; a legacy, he says, of the torture that led to him falsely implicating a man he had never met in a crime punishable by death in Indonesia. […]

Students for Sensible Drug Policy recently launched a drug testing initiative in Newcastle university, with plenty of media coverage this week, here’s the roundup of what you need to know. […]