People who use drugs have come up with innovative strategies that help them reduce harm, including using marijuana to decrease crack use and mixing heroin with methamphetamine to moderate the effects of meth or prolong the duration of heroin’s effects, according to presentations at the 25th International Harm Reduction Conference (HR17) last week in Montréal. […]

The ink hasn’t quite dried on all the contracts, but the Loop will be providing drug testing at four or five commercial festivals. Add up all the guests at these events, and Fiona Measham believes some 500,000 people will have access to a potentially lifesaving service. All this is a result of consultations with police and local authorities, as opposed…

It is abundantly clear that the aim is not to “stabilise lives and encourage people to participate in treatment”. If the Turnbull government genuinely wanted to help people into treatment it would direct what will undoubtedly be the very high costs of this program towards treatment. […]

Targeting and excluding people who use drugs is a terrible response to what is at its core a public health issue. This idea rests on the discredited view that illicit drug use is a “moral evil” as opposed to something 42 per cent of Australians have done at least once, and that getting tough is the appropriate response. […]

Some segment of the population is going to be injecting drugs: Do you want them doing it in a safe, clinical setting, or in a park? Stigmatizing a problem and driving it into the darkness only exacerbates it — which is why cities like Montreal should be applauded for taking a more thoughtful approach, even if it might seem a…

Integrated and coordinated service packages and partnerships with employers are likely to have longer term benefits, and provide better value than spending money on drug testing programs. Financial or welfare quarantining for people with severe problems may have a role as part of the overall approach, not be the centrepiece. […]

Scott Morrison’s federal budget has declared yet another “war on drugs”, announcing 5000 new welfare recipients will be required to undergo drug testing. Let’s be clear, there is no evidence these measures, which would target some of society’s most vulnerable people, would have any social benefit. […]

Many of our actions are now observable, searchable and traceable, and surveillance is more intrusive and extensive than ever. But the impact of this can fall more heavily on disadvantaged communities. So-called “random” drug testing is just another example of this worrisome trend. […]

In New Zealand, welfare recipients are drug tested as a precondition for getting certain jobs. But Ross Bell, the executive director of the New Zealand Drug Foundation, said the program has fundamentally been “a waste of time”. […]

If a North Shore mum had to give a drug test before she claimed Family Tax Benefit Part B, Sunrise and Mamamia would be calling for Malcolm Turnbull’s head, but when it is just the dole bludgers everyone seems kind of cool with it. […]