That’s the thing, the government doesn’t really want to help the unemployed with this plan. That’s not its aim. Its aim is to win the support of those who believe the unemployed have it easy and are getting wasted on the public dime. This policy isn’t about help. It is simply cynical politics. […]

Not only do these spaces save lives, decrease the risk of users contracting HIV and other diseases and clear related paraphernalia from our streets and parks, but they also help people access support services, such a healthcare, housing and benefits. They can help people take the first step in the journey from harmful addiction to a healthier life – specifically because…

HRA president, Gino Vumbaca, said the gulf between expert and public opinion showed the government and media were not properly communicating the complexities of the issue. “[Drug testing] is counter-productive, and that’s what you often find, when you talk to people who actually work in this area with knowledge of the issues,” he told Guardian Australia.  […]

The Victorian government’s decision to trial a supervised, safe injecting space for heroin users in inner Melbourne will save lives by preventing overdoses and by putting many addicts on a pathway to recovery. It is a welcome, though lamentably belated, reversal of a policy that has contributed to dozens of needless deaths this year alone in Richmond, where the trial…

“There can be no rehabilitation if you are dead. If you are lying in a laneway in a gutter with a syringe that you got through the needle and syringe exchange program just here, there can be no pathway to treatment for you,” Mr Andrews said. […]

Victoria will trial a safe drug-injecting room in inner Melbourne in a major turnaround for Premier Daniel Andrews, after calls to set up the centre amid a growing heroin crisis in the state. Minister for Mental Health Martin Foley said Cabinet approved the proposal after a review of private members bill and after considering advice from the police, the coroner…

Expectations are growing that a reversal of Labor’s rejection of a safe injecting room in Richmond might be announced any day, with senior ministers who are in favour of the idea growing in confidence. Government sources say emergency and health services have already recorded the number of lives lost to drugs in the council area so far in 2017 at 34 “and climbing”. […]

The ABC understands the high death rate is placing enormous pressure on the top levels of Government to change its position — with a potential trial of an injecting room under active consideration. […]

A tenet of his opposition to testing pills at music festivals seems to be that the information provided to people about their drugs might not always be 100 per cent accurate. It is seemingly better to have no information if you can’t provide complete, perfectly accurate information all the time. In science, that would mean a return to the Dark…

Former police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan says decriminalisation of small quantities of certain illicit substances could be the answer to WA’s drug problem. Mr O’Callaghan made the remarks during his first segment as a social commentator on Gareth Parker’s 6PR Morning Program, during which he also said the City of Perth needed a new substantive Lord Mayor and confirmed he had…