The time has come for Victorians to take a stand to prevent serious harm and death from illegal drugs and that’s exactly what Buninyong MP Geoff Howard is doing about pill-testing at events like music festivals. Mr Howard believes pill-testing at events like Rainbow will help prevent hospitalisation or even deaths of people who really don’t know what substances they are…

President of Harm Reduction Australia Gino Vumbaca said government and society should not be afraid of the evidence that shows the benefits of pill testing. “We are not condoning drug use, but we are living in the real world,” Vumbaca said. “The pragmatic view is that there will be people who do take drugs and we should minimise the risk that can…

The evidence for increased safety is compelling. At Insite, a safe-injection site in Vancouver, there was a 35 percent reduction in fatal overdoses in the area around the facility, compared with a 9.3 percent reduction in other parts of the city that may have had other interventions. People who used Insite were also much less likely to share needles than individuals…

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said Premier Andrews needed to “get his head out of the sand” and acknowledge that young people would experiment with drugs. “When Australia was confronted with the HIV epidemic in the ’80s, we were one of the first countries on earth to provide injecting drug users with clean needles,” Senator Di Natale told reporters on…

This debate has been raging for decades, but the time to act is now. Festival season is in full swing and although the police presence usually verges on the military, with vigorous searches and barking police dogs greeting revellers as they enter, at every festival young people will be taking ecstasy pills and MDMA to enhance their experience. […]

Premier Daniel Andrews says he will not reconsider his opposition to recreational drug testing despite a mass overdose on Friday night at a Festival Hall rave. But Yarra Drug and Health Forum executive director and former police officer Greg Denham said drug testing would certainly reduce the risk, particularly when there was a bad batch. […]

“We have to redefine [drug use] and shift from a law enforcement problem to a health and safety problem,” Wodak said, arguing Australia’s harm-minimisation policies have not pushed the pendulum far enough away from punitive responses. […]

The prophets of doom warned of all manner of social ills that would arise if marijuana were legalized. From hordes of dope-addled youths aimlessly wandering the streets to red-eyed carnage on the highway, the divinations were dire. And they were wrong. In a report released Tuesday the Drug Policy Alliance takes a long look at just what has happened in…

Victorian Greens MP Colleen Hartland, who has been campaigning for pill testing to be made available at festivals and dance parties, said the overdoses once again highlighted the need for such a service. “What happens in Europe is people can anonymously give over their drugs, they are tested, and then an authority such as the health department or a police…

Emergency department doctor David Caldicott, who has been pushing for a drug testing trial in the ACT, said it was another example of how testing of drugs at the point of consumption could save lives. He warned while the best way to avoid harm was to avoid drugs, opioid addicts faced the most risk. […]