Opposition spokeswoman for human services Linda Burney has called the decision to begin drug testing welfare recipients in Canterbury-Bankstown ”an attack on southwest Sydney”. “There is no medical evidence to support this trial. It will only create further poverty, homelessness and crime,” Ms Burney said. […]

Kian Loyd delos Santos, 17, is just one of thousands of Filipinos shot and killed by the police since President Rodrigo Duterte began a sweeping crackdown on drugs last year. But the youth’s death last week in Caloocan City, outside Manila, has had an effect that no other police killing has: The Senate, though dominated by allies of the president, has…

Australia is better than this. We have tried punishing people struggling with severe drug problems for half a century and it hasn’t worked. When people are down, don’t push them down even further: help them to get up. These proposals are exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. […]

Supervised injection rooms, legalising cannabis, and whether or not illicit drugs should be decriminalised will be up for discussion at a Victorian inquiry into drug law reform. Students for Sensible Drug Policy Australia have recommended the decriminalisation of drug use and possession. The group wants the state government to legalise recreational cannabis and say it should be regulated like alcohol, according to…

Amnesty International Campaign Manager Michael Hayworth said pressure needs to be put on the United Nations to mount an independent investigation into human rights abuses in the Philippines. “The Australia government along with other governments in the region can send a loud and clear message to President Duterte that this sort of behaviour, these killings are completely unacceptable” he said. […]

 A Philippine Catholic leader said Sunday that church bells will be rung every night for three months across his northern district to raise the alarm over a sharp spike in police killings of drug suspects, adding to a growing outcry over President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody crackdown. […]

Some of Australia’s foremost experts on addiction have pleaded for the federal government to scrap its controversial plan to drug test welfare recipients, saying the program’s negative impacts far outweigh its benefits and that it will further swamp an already struggling treatment sector. […]

One in five of the people who had their drugs tested chose to voluntarily hand over more drugs for disposal because they weren’t comfortable taking them after the consultation. And it has provided Measham – who researches trends in recreational drug taking – valuable data about the changing way Brits are getting intoxicated to help them do it more safely.…

The Philippines police came under pressure on Friday to explain the killing of a high-school student after the 17-year-old became one of at least 80 people shot dead this week in an escalation of President Rodrigo Duterte’s ruthless war on drugs. Witnesses told the ABS-CBN channel that the teenager did not have a firearm and police officers at the scene…

The number of suspected drug dealers killed by Indonesian police has more than tripled so far this year from the whole of 2016, activists said on Wednesday, raising concerns the country may be headed towards a bloody Philippines-style war on narcotics. […]