Pill testing could return to Groovin the Moo when the music festival moves to its new home at Exhibition Park in Canberra next April. Following the success of an Australian-first pill testing trial at the festival in April, the consortium behind the trial has put in a suite of proposals for other Canberra events, including Groovin the Moo run by promoter Cattleyard.…

Taking drugs is never completely safe. They all come with varying degrees of risk, which increase significantly if you ingest more than one substance at once. But if we want to curtail these overdoses, the government needs to fund pragmatic approaches like this, and sooner rather than later. Nobody needs to die when they go out dancing. […]

Although neither Sheffield University nor the Student Union condones the use of drugs on campus, their approach acknowledges how students may use drugs during their time at university. The Student Union links to harm reduction guidance, including details about needle exchanges, while also providing external guidance from The Loop – a UK charity which provides drug safety testing, welfare support,…

The Greens have revealed a plan to open 18 pill-testing services across Australia at a cost of $16m, saying the policy would disrupt drug dealing networks and cut preventable deaths. The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, a former drug and alcohol doctor, said the war on drugs had failed because 1 million Australians still used ecstasy and cocaine every year and…

“The war on drugs is a war on people — it has destroyed thousands of lives and wasted billions of dollars,” said Greens leader Richard Di Natale, a former drug and alcohol doctor. “Instead of protecting the community it is actually placing them at greater risk of harm. Pill testing has time and time again proven to reduce rates of harm…

Recreational drug users would be able to pop in to a shop and test their pills under a plan by the Australian Greens. Party leader Richard Di Natale today paid a morning visit to a Melbourne nightclub to unveil plans for 18 pill-testing shopfronts, costing $16 million over four years. Six of the proposed shops would be in major cities…

As NZ Green MP Chloe Swarbrick points out, there is a certain hypocrisy in MPs who have used drugs presiding over archaic drug laws. But if the moral or health-based arguments fail to persuade them and us, perhaps the economic ones will. […]

The Green Party says it is time for politicians to start walking the talk on drug policy and decriminalise drug use so users can access health services without fear of the law. An independent report into drug policy, released today, said that a harm-reduction approach and regulated sale of legal cannabis would see up to half a billion dollars a year…

Decriminalising drugs makes economic sense, with the cost of imprisoning a drug user at $100,000 a year, roughly twice as much as putting them in residential drug care, according to an economist. Shamubeel Eaqub from Sense Partners worked on the Drug Foundation report, which detailed three proposed models of drug policy reform […]

An emotional Chloe Swarbrick has called on fellow MPs across the political spectrum to decriminalise drug use in New Zealand, “to see harm reduced” and “to stop unnecessary deaths”. “I am calling on MPs across this house in all parties today to support sensible drug regulation that stops harm and prevents unnecessary deaths. […]