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NSW premier Chris Minns last week shattered the drug law reform agenda he’d been spruiking pre-election. The Labor leader has pushed his drug summit back to the end of the term and said he has “no mandate” for decriminalising drugs on the day his party colleagues made it law in the ACT. […]

Ahead of new laws coming in October, advocates answer police fears about more drug-driving deaths and bikie violence with a call to work together […]

The facility has confirmed what authorities had long warned – that each link in the illicit drug trade is in it for themselves. Dealers often dilute drugs, mixing in chemicals that stretch their stash – and their cash – as far as possible. […]

Nearly a thousand people have come forward to have their drugs tested and the results suggest a host of dangerous supplements and contamination may be found in the country’s party drugs. […]

A recent push to decriminalise cocaine, heroin and ice in the ACT has sparked a reaction as old as time itself from the police. […]

Ahead of new laws coming in October, advocates answer police fears about more drug-driving deaths and bikie violence with a call to work together […]

Finally, this week, drug decriminalisation came to Australian shores. Laws passed by a Labor Greens government in the ACT came into effect on Monday. Yet, on that very same day, NSW Labor premier Chris Minns decided to rain down on Canberra’s parade, telling the Murdoch press that his government isn’t contemplating drug decriminalisation at present, but if he is voted in again, it might contemplate it some time after that. […]

The drug driving regime in this state, as in the rest of the country, has always been controversial, as the testing model used, which ultimately sees people charged and lose their driver licence, doesn’t test for impairment levels, like drink driving, but rather tests for the mere presence of a drug. […]

David Heilpern, a former magistrate who retired in 2020 in large part because of his concerns NSW’s drug-driving laws were too punitive, described the judge’s decision as “extraordinary” and precedent-setting. […]

The force will become the first in the southern hemisphere to start carrying naloxone, which can restore normal breathing within minutes of its use. […]

The decriminalisation of cannabis nationwide is one step closer as Greens senator David Shoebridge introduced a bill on Thursday which would allow adults to grow up to six plants at home. […]

Thousands of Australians support legalising cannabis, backing in the Greens’ plan that could generate an additional $28billion in revenue over nine years. […]

An effective framework for allowing patients who use medical cannabis to drive is one that prioritises road safety while also recognising the importance of driving for freedom of movement and quality of life, write Dr Thomas Arkell and Associate Professor Vicki Kotsirilos AM. […]

Debilitated by the pain of complication from shingles, a friend suggested he try an alternative therapy […]

Sam Biondo is leaving the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association after 16 years leading the organisation. […]

There’s heated debate about a second safe injecting room for Victoria’s capital – yet few are asking why use of the drug is so much higher than other cities […]

The drug fentanyl has been at the heart of a deadly and devastating opioid crisis gripping the United States, but for years has had a relatively minimal presence in Australia’s illicit drug scene. […]

There’s been a long-term push for the Tasmanian government to fund an independent “‘peer-led” advisory body.  […]

With the exception of Tasmania, Australia’s drug driving laws prohibit the use of THC, even with a script. […]

Before you start thinking all the rules have gone out the window, there are quite a few caveats here. […]

Medicines prescribed for the treatment of patients with opioid dependence are set to become more accessible in the coming weeks. […]

“We must recognise that addiction is a public health issue – not a law enforcement problem,” Schumann writes below. […]

The extent of Australia’s drug crisis has been revealed, with the country following the United States and Canada to rank third for the highest number of opioid overdose deaths. […]

The new service is now available at community clinics in Wellington and Christchurch five days a week, and four days a week in Dunedin. […]

Canberra’s drug checking site has now tested 1000 substances.

The harm reduction service reported a majority of users disposing of their illicit drugs when testing found they contained unexpected and dangerous substances.

ABC’s Adam Shirley spoke with Stephanie Stephens, the Director of Service Delivery at Directions Health. […]

If there is a lesson to be learnt from Melbourne’s first safe-injecting room in North Richmond, which the state government finally made permanent this month after a five-year trial, it’s that the success of such a facility relies on appeasing the community as much as managing what goes on inside. […]

The most recent data from the Victorian coroner’s court shows between July 2020 and June 2022 Melbourne’s city centre had the highest amount of fatal heroin overdoses of any local government area. […]

There were 1788 drug-induced deaths among Australians in 2021, according to preliminary estimates in a new report by the Drug Trends program at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), UNSW Sydney. […]

Victoria’s first safe injecting room will become permanent in North Richmond after a protracted debate in the state’s upper house ended in a late-night vote on Thursday. […]

Harm reduction experts say excluding opiate treatment patients from those PBS benefits amounts to discrimination against some of Australia’s most vulnerable people.  […]

A prisoner has been hanged in Singapore for smuggling 1kg of cannabis, despite a plea from the United Nations to urgently reconsider the execution. […]

A NSW minister has broken ranks to urge her Labor government colleagues to “join the nationwide movement” toward pill testing at music festivals, while also suggesting controversial policing tactics such as strip searches and drug-detection dogs should be part of the promised drug summit. […]

Queensland parliament is poised to pass legislative changes that will divert thousands of people out of the courts and into health and education programs each year in a landmark shift in the state’s approach to illicit substances that new polling shows has popular support. […]

The ACT is the only jurisdiction to allow fixed and onsite drug testing. Backed by Pill Testing Australia, the CanTEST Health and Drug Checking Service uses a face-to-face service. 

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March 2023

The Queensland government has announced it will be the second jurisdiction in Australia to provide illicit drug testing, aiming to change the behaviour of users and reduce the risk of harm. […]

Queensland will roll out pill-testing sites in an attempt to curb the harmful effects of illicit drugs. […]

Senator David Shoebridge, on behalf of the Greens, has obtained compelling constitutional law advice that provides a path forward for Federal Parliament to legalise cannabis for adult use across the country. […]

Associate Professor David Caldicott, an emergency department doctor who appeared at the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide to advocate the drugs be used for returned soldiers suffering from psychological trauma, said he was pleasantly surprised by Friday’s decision. […]

Stalled progress on the city’s second safe-injecting facility is heaping pressure on community health professionals

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