AFP Commissioner Blames People Who Use Drugs for Prohibition Policing Failures
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett has hit out at people who use illicit drugs, stating that all illicit drug users are ‘contributing to deadly street violence and expanding criminal networks. These comments have been widely reported on mainstream commercial media, most...
Pill Testing Is Finally Being Made Permanent at NSW Music Festivals
The Minns government announced on Wednesday, 2 September 2026, that from October, pill testing, or drug checking, services will be available at select New South Wales music festivals on a permanent basis. And this much-welcomed decision by NSW Labor comprises...
Illicit Drug Use Is Spiking, Yet NSW Authorities Continue Deadly and Performative Approach
The National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program released its latest figures for the period December 2024 to October 2025, and in its ninth year, it found there has been a significant spike in illicit drug use in this country, in terms...
Social Media Giants are Deleting Lifesaving Drug Warnings: Interview with AIVL’s Molly Howes
Social media companies, like Meta and TikTok, have been removing the drug warning alerts that local harm reduction organisations have been posting on their social media pages, despite the fact that these are warnings about bad batches of illicit substances,...
“Hey Commissioner, Stop Running Drug Dogs Through Pubs and Clubs”, Demand NSW Greens
New South Wales Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann quizzed NSW police commissioner Mal Lanyon on the practice of running drug dogs through bars in Sydney. And as the local member pointed out to the top cop, during a 27 February 2026...
Colombia Is Leading Progressive Drug Law Reform: Interview with Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann
Speaking at a recent cannabis symposium at Sydney University, NSW Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann told the crowd that she’d attended the 2025 Harm Reduction International Conference held in Bogota, Colombia, and the proposals being tossed about at that forum pretty...
Ending Global Cannabis Prohibition Is Inevitable, According to Sydney Uni Symposium
Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge suggested an “ethical discussion” that should be had in this country involves the ongoing criminalisation of the personal possession of drugs, and in particular, the cannabis plant, at a symposium held at Sydney University last...
NSW Government Rejects Drug Law Reform Sought by the Community
The NSW Labor Carr government set the precedent for visionary drug law reform delivered by a state government at risk of unpopular civil society response, because it was of most benefit to the people of NSW in 1999. Yet, with...
NSW Drug Law Campaigners Call for Long Sought-After Illicit Substance Reforms
A coalition of NSW organisations led by Uniting held a presser last week calling on NSW premier Chris Minns to respond to the Report on the 2024 New South Wales Drug Summit within the six-month-period that report authors set for...
Spike in Prohibited Drug Use and Associated Crime Intensifies Calls for Legalisation
The Australian Crime Intelligence Commission has yet again consulted the nation’s sewage to find that its people had consumed more than 22.2 tonnes of crystal meth, cocaine, heroin and MDMA over the 12 months to August 2024, which is the...
