Australia remains disconnected to more enlightened drug policies internationally. No major country, however, dares argue for the complete legalisation of all drugs. […]
2016 Articles RSS feed for this section
Medical marijuana is now legal in Australia
The Australian parliament passed new national laws today paving the way for the use of medicinal cannabis by people with painful and chronic illness. […]
Chronicle AM: Vermont Senate gives first approval of legalization Bill, Connecticut medical marijuana expansion, and more…
Marijuana legalization advances in Vermont; medical marijuana advances in Connecticut, Australia, and Canada; Eric Holder says it’s time to reschedule marijuana, Obama says restricting pain pills won’t solve the opioid crisis, and more. […]
Pill testing trial to begin at Sydney music festivals, vows drug expert Alex Wodak
The Australian drug expert who pioneered the nation’s first legal injecting centre has put himself on a collision course with the Baird government and NSW Police by vowing to break the law and roll out pill testing at Sydney’s forthcoming music festivals. […]
NSW Labor MP Jo Haylen blasts ineffective and dangerous drug laws in barnstorming speech
One state Labor MP, Member for Summer Hill Jo Haylen, is bucking the party line and calling for change. […]
Greens leader backs decriminalisation of ice
News Corp reports Federal leader Richard Di Natale and Queensland Senator Larissa Waters will tell a national drug summit that ice addicts should be able to use the drug without facing police action. […]
Heroin prescriptions help Vancouver addicts rebuild their lives
A B.C. Supreme Court decision allowing staff at a Vancouver addiction clinic to prescribe heroin is producing positive results, and advocates want to see the program expand across the country. […]
Greens leader Richard Di Natale wants pill testing in Australia
Federal Greens leader, Senator Richard Di Natale, has reiterated his calls for Australia to introduce testing of illicit drugs. […]
Why deaths won’t stop the party: Drug test kits gain popularity as festival overdoses soar
As hospital admissions for ecstasy and MDMA use soar in Australia, the chilling stories of festival overdoses are failing to stop young people risking their lives. […]
A handful of nails for the coffin of the ‘failed and counter-productive’ war on drugs
The War on Drugs has proven to be “a failed and counter-productive strategy”. […]
We can’t eradicate drugs, but we can stop people dying from them
Not only is what Australia doing not working, we’re falling behind the rest of the world and what evidence says is best to ensure we have fewer deaths from illicit drugs. […]
BOCSAR crime stats boss Don Weatherburn calls for lighter prison sentences
The state’s top statistician has called for a complete overhaul of the way crime and imprisonment is addressed in NSW. […]
The war on drugs has become an embarrassment of Orwellian proportions
Another week passes and, somewhere in Australia, another announcement by a Justice Minister is made on how we are winning the so-called ‘War on Drugs’. […]
Landmark decision opens first needle exchange in conservative Orange County
The California Department of Public Health has approved the first ever needle exchange in Orange County. […]
A Maryland lawmaker’s paradigm-shifting approach to the heroin and pain pill crisis
Veteran Maryland Delegate Dan Morhaim (D-Baltimore County) has just introduced a package of bills that would begin to move the state’s posture toward drug use from prohibition to public health and harm reduction. […]
Kenya: drug users need doctors not policemen
The recent increase in drug use in Kenya, coupled with the rising HIV epidemic among key populations, calls for a critical review of how drug using populations are managed. […]
Australia’s former top cop Mick Palmer says drug policy is failing, new approach needed
The former head of the AFP, Mick Palmer, and the former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdrey, have both told Four Corners current drug policy isn’t working and a new approach is needed. […]
Dying to dance
“If the Government thinks that people are going to stop taking drugs, they’re kidding themselves.” […]
Una Mullally: It’s ludicrous to hand over drug quality control to criminal gangs
The highest level in Europe of so-called ‘legal high’ drug use was found among young Irish people […]
AIDS Moncton gives out crack pipes to area drug users
AIDS Moncton has quietly been supplying drug users in southeastern New Brunswick with reusable crack pipes for more than three years. […]
The new war on drugs: harm reduction, needle exchange used more in fight against heroin
When the War On Drugs proved unsuccessful, researchers, clinicians, and lawmakers were forced to go back to the drawing board. […]
Synthetic drugs are killing our kids, so let’s take control
Prohibiting recreational drugs hasn’t worked, so it’s time to try regulating them. […]
Australia’s drug driving laws are grossly unfair
Australia’s drug driving laws criminalise individuals who represent no risk to other drivers, writes Greg Barns. […]
Why one ex-Chicago prosecutor changed her thinking on the drug war
“Part of what bothers me the most about whole the war on drugs is the sheer intellectual dishonesty of it,” Inge Fryklund says as she rattles off a brief history of prohibition. […]
Getting tough on crime needs a softer approach
There is a saying in the prison building industry that goes along the lines of: ‘If you build them, they will fill them’. […]
When addiction has a white face
When crack hit America in the mid-1980s, for African-Americans, to borrow from Ta-Nehisi Coates, civilization fell. […]
Why harm reduction and drug policy reform need each other
Gloria Lai from the International Drug Policy Consortium briefly discusses policy reform in the run up to the UN General Assembly Special Session on the world drug problem. […]
Philpott expects more applications for safe injection sites
Canadian federal health minister Jane Philpott says she is expecting more applications for establishing safe injection sites across the country. […]
Just saying yes to the politics of drugs
What’s behind this newfound willingness of former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida to talk about the personal toll of addiction? […]
The only way to stop the next El Chapo: Why America needs to legalize all its drugs
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán put it simply to Sean Penn: “The day I don’t exist,” drug trafficking is “not going to decrease in any way at all.” […]
Why Australia needs drug consumption rooms
While the benefits of incarceration can be difficult to identify, Sydney’s Medically Supervised Injecting Centre produces larger financial savings than it costs to run. […]
Canada approves second officially supervised intravenous drug use site
An acclaimed Canadian HIV/Aids treatment centre has been given the green light to operate a supervised drug injection site by Canada’s federal government, becoming the second such approved site in North America. […]
‘We accept you’: Police pledge compassion instead of force to help people ‘suffering from addiction’
A police chief in Massachusetts has made an emotional Facebook appeal to drug addicts. […]
Insite gets stamp of approval from Canada’s health minister
Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott has given a heartfelt stamp of approval to the work of Vancouver’s Insite supervised-injection site. […]
Clinton vows tepid leadership on cannabis
Clinton’s essentially saying she’d consider loosening rules on cannabis by regulating it like opium or cocaine. The bare minimum of reform. […]
Prohibition breeds ‘hypocrites and lawbreakers,’ ex-Attorney General tells Vermonters
Former Vermont Attorney General Kimberly Cheney will be appearing in a new ad that backs marijuana legalization in Vermont. […]
What does World AIDS Day mean for police?
Why should police even care about this public health campaign? […]
Music festivals and drugs: how would pill testing work?
There is little but political will standing in the way of introducing pill testing at Australian music festivals. […]
The case for supervised injection, treatment
Drug addiction remains a major public health challenge in many settings throughout the world, including in Victoria. […]
Congress ends ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs
The US Congress just changed a policy that was in place for much of the last three decades, effectively ending a ban on federal funding for needle exchanges. […]
Australia has a long history of fighting harm minimisation drug policies
A group of community members have presented an open letter to NSW Premier Mike Baird, calling for legalised pill testing at public events. So far politicians have been reluctant to introduce such measures. […]