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The NCA’s willingness to potentially endanger the health and well-being of the community it supposedly serves is a betrayal of trust. The federal government’s complicity in allowing such a decision to stand, without evening engaging the medical and health professionals providing the pill-testing service, speaks to the lack of due diligence, perhaps even cowardice, in the decision-making process. […]

Palmer has come out firing at the government and Premier in particular saying “My mind boggles at the thought that a government is not even prepared to start a trial of pill testing. Clearly she and other state premiers opposing the idea do not have the courage to say what we’ve got now is not working.” […]

Representatives from the music industry, policing, and drug and harm minimisation experts were present at the talks to discuss how to keep people safe at festivals. […]

“Harm minimisation is dealt with as a law enforcement issue in this country and state, whereas when you look overseas it’s dealt with as a health issue, so that is where the conversation needs to go,” Mothership Event’s Justin Nyker said. […]

An Australian-first pill testing trial took place at the Canberra leg of Groovin The Moo in April, with the program’s final report deeming the trial an “overwhelming success”. In August, a $100,000 fundraiser was also launched to help support the roll out of pill testing programs at more Australian music festivals, following the successful Groovin The Moo trial. […]

“President Trump is the last person who should be defining the global debate on drug policy,” says one expert. “Trump has shown complete disdain for human rights and international law.” […]

Telling young people not to take drugs isn’t working. That’s according to the head of a national drug services organisation and a former Australian Federal Police commissioner. Instead, the nation should focus on reducing the harm caused by drugs, including offering pill testing at music festivals, the duo say. […]

Will a strategic approach of harm minimisation absolutely stop the number of deaths from drug consumption? No. Might it reduce the number of deaths? Yes. Isn’t that enough of a reason to try a different approach to drug use? No doubt the Canberra pill-trial wasn’t perfect. But it demonstrated a willingness to admit prohibition is a failure. […]

What if the media covered alcohol like it does other drugs? This was a question that came up in my coverage of flakka, a synthetic drug that made headlines after law enforcement blamed it for people running in the streets naked in delusional paranoia. What follows is a satirical attempt at capturing that same type of alarmist reporting, but for a substance that really causes widespread and severe problems. […]

Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Dr Alex Wodak said additional police resources at music festival were doing more harm than good. “There were 120 police and 20 detectives at Defqon.1,” Dr Wodak said. “We have to recognise that relying heavily on law enforcement has been incredibly unsuccessful. “It is irresponsible of governments not to consider pill testing. […]

Two people died at Defqon.1 festival in Sydney over the weekend. Three others are in critical condition, and another 700 had to seek medical assistance during the festival. This has to stop, and it won’t stop through zero tolerance. […]

“A decriminalisation approach coupled with investment in harm reduction and treatment services can have a positive impact on both individual drug users and society as a whole. The Uniting Church in NSW and ACT is taking a leadership role in this important campaign, we are encouraging everyone to show their support for the need for a major change to national drug policy.” […]

The test, despite claims from politicians, does not give a rating on how safe the drug is. It simply allows people, who are already planning to consume a drug anyway, to know what they are about to put in their mouth. Caldicott said this information often led to people discarding their drugs, as evidenced by long-running programs in Europe and his own Canberra trial. […]

I believe that we need to double down on our efforts to minimise the harm experienced by illicit drug users in Australia. These efforts should include the decriminalisation of addiction and the provision of pill testing. […]

Police have come under renewed fire from angry festivalgoers who claim cops were scaring people away from the medical tent at the Defqon. 1 festival where two people died of drug overdoses. […]

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. […]

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. […]

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. […]

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. […]

The deaths of Joseph Pham, 23 and a 21-year-old woman from Melbourne has reignited calls for festivals to offer pill testing for harm reduction as the government’s “just say no” approach was slammed. Hundreds have taken to social media using the hashtag #timetotest calling on the government to change its strategy, and enforce pill testing, rather than just banning festivals. […]

It is now time for Australia to have a conversation not about how we respond to drugs, but how we respond to people. In Canberra we are leading the way on this critically important change. […]

It is not about giving a drug the stamp of legitimacy; it is about creating an opportunity for a crucial conversation on risk at the right place and the right time. […]

How long can political leaders continue to delude themselves that their stern warnings prevent young people from taking drugs at youth music events? How long can they continue to claim, against the evidence, that saturation policing assisted by sniffer dogs substantially reduces the availability of drugs at these events? […]

The nation’s peak medical body has called for pill testing trials after two young people died of suspected drug overdoses at a major Australian music festival. Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone said law enforcement couldn’t be the only approach to solving the illicit drug issue. Testing could do more than verify whether illicit substances were in festival attendees’ pills, he said. […]

Harm minimisation group Sniff Off said it was “disgusting” Ms Berejiklian was “using the tragic loss of these two young lives to push her absurd ‘just don’t do drugs’ message, when it is the NSW government’s extreme overpolicing measures that allowed deaths like this to occur in the first place”. “Installing police with drug dogs at festivals only causes people to panic-swallow all their drugs at once, so it’s no wonder that people overdose,” it posted. […]

Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm has described the decision by a Senate committee to recommend against passage of his Bill to remove Commonwealth restrictions on recreational cannabis as short-sighted. “An estimated 35 per cent of Australians admit to having used marijuana at some point in their lives, so it is pretty clear the policy of prohibition is not working. […]

New South Wales Greens MP David Shoebridge said targeting individual drug users at festivals is a waste of police resources which would have no meaningful impact on drug supply. “What we should be doing is having the police cooperating with festival organisers and having pill testing and we could be saving people’s lives.” […]

With the growing use of drug-induced homicide charges in the US, people are reporting fears to call 911 once again. Whereas people feared arrest for drugs and paraphernalia before, now the charge could be homicide. (It also cannot be stressed strongly enough that, if not for supply side enforcement, our illicit heroin supply would not have been adulterated with fentanyl. […]

In a breakthrough summer for the service, and with consent from the Home Office, “front of house” drug testing facilities were available at seven festivals in England, run by not-for-profit organisation The Loop. Figures have shown more than 8000 people had drugs tested anonymously, and were subsequently given results about purity levels, any contamination, and drug safety advice. […]

What of illicit drugs? Turns out things are quieter there too. In fact, there may have been a little unnecessary panic. As Nigel Gladstone reports today, official statistics have indicated that drug crime in NSW is worse than it really is. Because of double-counting, 81,776 more drug busts than really happened were reported. […]

Data used to back up the use of drug sniffer dogs at music festivals and praise police busts has been “double counted”, raising questions over the legitimacy of drug-related strategies in NSW. The Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) said that drug-related crime statistics for NSW have been mistakenly inflated by the government’s official reporting agency for seven years. […]

More than 8,000 people came forward to have their drugs tested at music festivals in the UK this summer. Testers found drugs four-times stronger than normal or being mixed with anti-malaria tablets and plaster. Service provider The Loop is compiling the information it gets from festivals for research it is planning to present to the Home Office and is aiming to attend more festivals in 2019. […]

History records that prohibition never works and that trying to censor human appetites for anything addictive is doomed to fail. Announce drug laws and declare drug wars and you not only fill the prisons with a new category of innocent criminals and corrupt the justice system, but you create the violent criminality to make matters infinitely worse. […]

Incredible new statistics reveal a major increase in the number of strip searches on NSW residents over the past two years — and critics say the tactic is “humiliating” and a waste of everyone’s time and money. The figures, compiled for news.com.au by NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, show the number of invasive searches on people in the state almost doubled from 2016 to 2017. […]

Just five years after Portugal decriminalised drugs in 2001, illegal drug use by teenagers had declined, the rate of HIV infections among drug users had dropped, deaths related to heroin and similar drugs had been cut by more than half, and the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction had doubled – and drug use has not risen. […]

Earlier this year, Australia’s landmark first pill-testing trial took place at Canberra’s Groovin’ The Moo. Deemed a success, the findings proved what advocates have been saying for years — that pill-testing saves lives. And now, the team behind the trial need your help to take it to the next level. […]

Required for treatment is a multilevel approach that accepts people as they are, in which compassion replaces stigmatization and rehabilitation supplants punishment. This would include: Supervised drug-use sites in as many communities as feasible; for those who need them, medically supervised opiates or opiate substitute maintenance, while for others, abstinence-based programs, without legal or moral coercion; for all, personalized trauma therapy, recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. […]

“A recent Senate estimates hearing heard that overall the department expects only 100 to 120 people to test positive a second time across the three trial sites. That’s $1 million committed for an evaluation of a trial that is likely to impact up to 120 people, before we know how much the contract to the private provider will cost.” […]

The lesson from Australia is this: if policy makers expect doctors to do all the heavy lifting, they must be supported. If patients who need medical cannabis are being blocked, the system must be changed. If a government legalises medical cannabis, they have committed themselves to making it available. And they should be held to account. […]

Labor MP Emma McBride reflected on her experience with a harm-minimisation approach in her work as a mental health pharmacist at Wyong Hospital. “If the government is genuine in its claim to help those burdened by dependence, a good first step would be properly funding units like this one and not attacking welfare recipients,” she said. […]

Tackling deaths related to drugs isn’t easy to do. But we do know what works. Nobody wants to be dependent on drugs, but I know it can happen to anyone. I’ve seen the most improbable comebacks and the unluckiest of tragedies. I also know that everyone can get better with the right support. […]

The Aftenposten newspaper reported on Thursday evening that Health Minister Bent Høie had asked the Norwegian Directorate of Health to draw up a list of which addicts were most suitable to receive so-called “heroin-assisted treatment”, and to assess the economic consequences of developing a heroin treatment program. […]

“Among all the presidents I’ve known, Duterte’s the only one who’s taken the drug problem seriously,” said Rechi Cristobal, a specialist I spoke with who has spent years as a counselor training health workers. Yet in tackling addiction, Mr. Duterte’s tactics may be harming more than helping. “It’s scared everyone to the point that instead of seeking help, they’ve just gone underground.” […]

Countries that have decriminalized personal drug use and possession and invested in public health interventions have seen positive results. For example, since decriminalization, Portugal has seen a reduction in drug use among vulnerable populations and increases in the number of people accessing treatment. There have also been significant decreases in HIV transmission (as high as 85 percent) and drug-related deaths. […]

Though in the “barangay” slums [a small administrative district] drugs watch lists predate Duterte’s administration, he has used them to instil fear and to impose a paranoiac’s version of social order. Despite a reported spike of more than 50 per cent in the national murder rate [according to figures from July to November 2016 vs the same period in 2015], Filipinos are said to feel safer with Duterte’s nationwide “peace and order project” in full swing. […]

Instead of “metaphor” and melodrama we need facts. The whole field is littered with hyperbole, which is precisely what makes people overly cynical and no longer receptive to harm reduction messaging. When you tell a generation that MDMA is eating a hole in their brain and that turns out to be bullshit, they’re not interested in whatever legitimately harmful properties you might talk about. […]

Health Minister David Clark is personally in favour of more liberal drug laws because prohibition has not worked in the past. But Clark would not commit to abiding by the result of any referendum on loosening laws around cannabis use, saying he preferred to wait for advice from his colleagues. “I think it’s highly likely that that’s the course we would take … all I’ve said is I want to wait for advice.” […]

Government and public health officials in Melbourne have recently agreed to the establishment of an injecting centre in their city, citing the success of the Kings Cross facility. It now seems entirely appropriate that a city as large, expansive and diverse as Sydney, and with its sizeable number of injecting drug users, should have the benefit of another one of these facilities. […]

SA Network of Drug and Alcohol Services executive director Michael White said claims methamphetamine was the most commonly used drug in SA were misleading. White expressed concern that the Business SA report and subsequent media coverage could have a harmful impact on methamphetamine users seeking treatment. […]

The authors call for the use of buprenorphine and methadone in prisons and distribution of the overdose reversal drug naloxone prior to release. They also note the need for more robust reentry services, as challenges such as finding a job, housing, or health care could “serve as an impetus for substance abuse.” […]

Drug law reform has been gaining significant media attention, with the myths surrounding drug driving tests and sniffer dogs being exposed, as well as the successes of festival pill testing schemes. Those in favour of drug law reform seek harm minimisation and liberation from outdated laws, to stop drug laws being used as a pretence to harass the working-class, Aboriginal people, queer people, youth, and people of colour. […]

Treatment for opioid dependence is hampered by lack of availability, acceptability and affordability of treatment for affected Australians, say Angelo Pricolo, Harm Reduction Australia and ScriptWise. A new report, A Better System for Better Outcomes, outlines recommendations from a recent National Medicated Assisted Treatment for Opioid Dependence Summit hosted by the two national organisations. […]

Drug checking is gaining support overseas, with Australia’s ACT government planning to expand pill testing at events after a successful trial in May, and the UK Home Office last week stating that drug checking services are legal and it will not stand in the way of initiatives there. Allison believes it’s time the New Zealand government acted to support drug checking here […]

The latest poll carried out by The Drug Foundation found  89 percent of those surveyed believe medical cannabis should be legal or decriminalised for patients a terminal illness, up significantly on its 2017 survey (81%). 87 percent said it should be available for pain relief (78 percent in 2017). […]

In April 2018, the ACT government and the AFP agreed to conduct a pill-testing trial at the Groovin the Moo music festival. On the day of the festival, 85 substances were tested on behalf of attendees. Two of the samples were found to contain highly toxic chemicals. The AFP agreed not to target people who used the testing service; instead, officers went after those selling and trafficking drugs, resulting in one arrest. […]

Former ACT health minister and outgoing president of the World Federation of Public Health Associations  Michael Moore has renewed calls for a needle and syringe program in the Alexander Maconochie Centre, seven years after the ACT branch recommended one be set up. In an address on World Hepatitis Day, Mr Moore said while there had been breakthroughs in antiviral medicines, prevention was better – and cheaper in this case – than a cure. […]

A new poll commissioned by the NZ Drug Foundation has found soaring public support for cannabis law reform. Support for legal or decriminalised access to cannabis for people with terminal pain has risen to 89 per cent, up from 81 per cent last year. The poll of 943 eligible voters took place between July 2-17. […]

The global elimination of hepatitis C as a public health threat will not be achievable unless we improve access to harm reduction services, de-stigmatise drug use and drug users, and improve the overall health of people who use drugs. […]

The maximum fine for cannabis possession will still quadruple under the laws, from $500 to $2000. The tough stance on cannabis possession had been criticised by Law Society president Tim Mellor as lacking “evidence-based justification”. “The Bill, in our view, fails to sufficiently recognise that drug addiction is a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue,” he said in a submission to the Bill. […]

Based on the direct experiences of law enforcement officers from across the globe, this report showcases alternatives to common punitive models for policing, and presents recommendations for how to incorporate new, evidence-based harm reduction approaches that aim to increase public safety, public health, and public confidence. […]

Public-health experts in the Netherlands say free distribution is one reason that drug-related deaths are far less common than in the United States. The program also has reduced crime and improved the quality of life for many users, according to Ellen van den Hoogen, who runs the clinic. […]

According to Dr Caldicott, there are two things that change young people’s minds about drug taking: “The idea that what they’re taking could kill them and the idea that they’ve been ripped off.” “We’re able to provide both of those messages,” he said. Research from overseas similarly suggests that pill testing can change people’s decisions around drugs resulting in reduced harm to users. […]

“People don’t consume drugs not caring if they get hurt. The very fact that they’re testing their drugs means that they very much care if they’re going to get hurt or not, and we find the model of taking a doctor who knows an awful lot about illicit drugs and sitting someone down and saying, ‘Look, buddy, this is what we think is going on and we really think you’re better off not taking this particular drug’ [does work].” […]

“The positive effects of a regulated marijuana market in NYS outweigh the potential negative impacts. Areas that may be a cause for concern can be mitigated with regulation and proper use of public education that is tailored to address key populations. Incorporating proper metrics and indicators will ensure rigorous and ongoing evaluation.” […]

The violent anti-drugs campaign in Bangladeshhas claimed more than 200 lives, according to human rights advocates. “It is unprecedented in Bangladesh. So many people have been killed in such a short period of time,” Sheepa Hafiza, executive director of Ain o Salish Kendra, told Agence France-Presse.  […]

With opioid-related overdoses and deaths reaching record levels in Canada, the top medical official in Toronto is calling for the decriminalization of all drugs as part of a strategy to treat illicit drug use as a public health and social issue, not a criminal one. In a report released Monday, Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s chief medical officer, urged the city’s board of health to pressure the federal government to eliminate legal penalties for the possession of drugs and to scale up “prevention, harm reduction and treatment services.” […]

People assume a medical committee sat down to consider which recreational drugs were the safest and least addictive, and tyyhis wise group decided alcohol and tobacco should be legal, while marijuana and everything else shouldn’t. That’s not what happened. […]

Throwing drug addicts in jail costs a lot of money. That money would be better spent on funding services such as rehabilitation and re-education. Any parent that has been down the road of trying to secure a place for their kid in a state rehabilitation program will understand the dire need of that extra funding. […]

Former detective sergeant Al Lester said making drugs legal would take the power away from criminals who make huge amounts of money from the trade – and stop those committing offences to fund drug habits. […]

South Australia’s Commissioner for Children and Young People has labelled the Liberal Government’s plan to introduce mandatory drug treatment for children as a “punitive” approach that breaches young people’s rights. […]

There are renewed calls for the UK government to allow the opening of a drug consumption room in Glasgow after three police and crime commissioners backed the idea as a way of saving lives. The elected commissioners for Durham, North Wales and West Midlands said they were “deeply concerned” about the Home Office’s opposition to the use of drug consumption rooms (DCRs), which are sometimes referred to as “fix rooms”. […]

Strongmen in the Philippines have long used assassination to retain control of their territories, according to HRW’s Conde. The difference now is that Duterte has normalized such killings by packaging them as part of the “war on drugs.” The fear they have created is quickly eroding opposition. […]

Melbourne’s new safe injecting room has saved 12 drug users’ lives and received 400 visits since it opened on Saturday, its director says. Dr Nico Clarke said the Richmond North centre, which is having a two-year trial, had prevented between one and three potentially fatal overdoses every day. […]

The latest NDSH survey from 2016 found 73.9% of Australians do not support the possession of cannabis being a criminal offence. When asked how cannabis possession should be dealt with by the courts, 46.6% of Australians reported they would prefer either “a caution, warning or no action”, while 27% said users should be referred “to treatment or an education program” over more punitive measures. […]

The Victorian government has hit back at claims Melbourne’s medically supervised drug-injecting room is a failure, with the centre’s director saying staff intervened during 12 overdoses since it opened less than a week ago. […]

Noting that marijuana has become increasingly accepted by society, a federal judge in Brooklyn made an unusual promise on Thursday: He pledged he would no longer reimprison people simply for smoking pot. […]

New York Senator Chuck Schumer introduced a new bill to regulate marijuana at the federal level. The bill isn’t aimed at legalizing the drug but the proposal would decriminalize it. “The time to decriminalize marijuana is now,” Sen. Schumer said in a press statement. “The new Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act is about giving states the freedom to be the laboratories that they should be and giving Americans—especially women and minority business owners as well as those convicted of simple possession of marijuana intended for personal use—the opportunity to succeed in today’s economy.” […]

After the recent tragic deaths of two people at Mutiny Festival in Portsmouth, the issue of drug safety testing has been thrust into the spotlight once again. DJ Mag talks to Fiona Measham, founder of The Loop harm reduction organisation, about the work that they do and why some pill manufacturers are making their ecstasy so strong… […]

Drugs have been found on fewer than 15 per cent of South Australians searched after sniffer dogs or electronic tests indicated they were carrying drugs, prompting questions about the legality of the search dogs being used in public areas. RMIT criminologist Peta Malins said the low return on the positive indications from the drug detection dogs raised real questions about the legal grounds for police searches. […]

While I personally support the decriminalisation of the use of drugs by addicts, and the possession of these drugs for personal use, that too will not resolve the organised crime challenge. It will, however, help relieve the pressure on criminal justice systems from prosecutions of minor drug possession offences. […]

Outrage and criticism brewed overnight as South Australians and experts responded to the news that the state’s new Liberal government would be ramping up its war on drugs — starting with cannabis. […]

The South Australian Government wants to quadruple penalties for marijuana possession, a move that could seriously impact users of medical cannabis. South Australia decriminalised possession of small amounts of marijuana decades ago. However, Attorney General Vickie Chapman says the government is seeking to bring cannabis penalties into line with other drugs. […]

The South Australian government’s plan to introduce jail sentences for people caught in possession of cannabis faces defeat in the state’s parliament after Labor and upper house crossbenchers signalled their opposition to the bill. […]

Alex Wodak from the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation said Chapman’s attempts to link cannabis use to murder were “nonsense”. Wodak said the policy shift “goes against everything we know” about reducing drug use harm and warned that SA risked falling “completely out of step” with the rest of the world. […]

There is majority support in Tasmania for the decriminalisation of recreational marijuana, according to a poll released by the Greens’ candidate for the Braddon by-election Jarrod Edwards. An Essential telephone poll of more than 1,100 Tasmanians found 59 per cent supported the move while 28 per cent opposed it. […]

Victoria’s first supervised injecting room will open its doors within days, marking the start of a two-year trial in inner-Melbourne, with the public to be given a glimpse inside the controversial facility. The site has been approved by state parliament, local councils, and was set up in consultation with medical experts after a spike in the number of drug deaths in North Richmond, Mental Health Minister Martin Foley told ABC radio on Friday. […]

As the Report figures reflect, ignoring these deafening calls comes at a great human cost. In 2019, as the international community will meet again to discuss the future of global drug control, it would be negligent for countries not to meaningfully reflect on these impacts and change course. The harms of drug policy are not a fatality. […]

The ACT’s Justice and Mental Health Minister, Shane Rattenbury, agreed with STA-SAFE, telling the Guardian, “I’d certainly encourage [consultation between states]…It’s always hardest to do these things the first time, and we’d be very happy to share the knowledge we gleaned from [the trial].” […]

Tuesday, activists in NYC joined with thousands of people in over 200 cities around the world as part of the “Support. Don’t Punish” Global Day of Action to demand an end to drug policies that disregard the value of human life and reduce drug use to a one-dimensional law enforcement issue. […]

The ACT Government will look to expand pill testing at events in the ACT after the successful trial at this year’s Groovin’ the Moo Festival, and monitor safe injecting centres in other states to see if such a facility should be set up here. These are among a catalogue of harm-minimisation measures in a  new three-year Drug Strategy Action Plan developed with input from a range of stakeholders and released for consultation. […]

What Lakeman finds “impossible to get my head around” is the law’s refusal to apply the principle of harm reduction to drug use. “Every single other aspect of our lives is governed by trying to make things as safe as possible. The only thing we don’t do it with is drugs. […]