It’s time for a new perspective on drugs, on addiction and on how we manage drugs as a country. We know how to make Australia the safest place on the planet when it comes to drugs and young people. It’s time to leave the past behind and get on board with pill testing and evidence-based treatment. […]

All UK festivals should provide drug-testing facilities, experts and campaigners have urged, following the deaths of two young people believed to have taken high-strength ecstasy at a festival over the bank holiday weekend. […]

Australia tends to think about drugs in a binary fashion. Do we prohibit this drug? Or is it widely available? The question should no longer be whether to ban drugs or not, perhaps the question on our every law makers lips should be “how much control do we want?” and “what plans are in place to avert the next major…

People want to know what is in their drugs, that is now clear, and they respond sensibly and appropriately when given the chance. Of course we can “just say no”, don’t take them but what if they persist? The answer is “just say know”. […]

The Police Federation spokesman on drugs policing, Simon Kempton, has called for a rethink on drugs policy, saying prohibition has “never worked”. Sgt Kempton, who works for Dorset Police, said the government should consider the Portuguese approach, where the possession of drugs has been decriminalised since 2001. […]

“The court believes the testimony of Maria in that she was an innocent carrier,” Exposto’s lawyer Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah said. “She was tricked into carrying the bag because of what we now call the internet scam, internet romance.” […]

It appears that different parts of Australia are choosing considerably different approaches to drug policy. It remains to be seen if Premier Marshall’s approach will be successful at reducing methamphetamine use among schoolchildren, but existing evidence suggests that it will not. […]

The trial of pill testing at a recent music festival in Canberra was declared ‘‘a great success’’ by ACT police chief Justine Saunders. Testing illicit substances for life-threatening impurities has long helped harm minimisation elsewhere, but the trial was unprecedented in Australia. […]

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody crackdown on drugs is pushing the country’s most vulnerable people even further towards the margins, says Global Commission on Drugs executive secretary Khalid Tinasti […]

Drug education, addiction prevention and addiction treatment should be informed not by ideological belief or moral crusade but by evidence-based research. These services must promote harm reduction and human rights. We should not be in the business of preventing drug use, in the same way, that we shouldn’t seek to prevent people from having a cup of coffee, glass of…