The Wild Horses Sting? Police Breath and Drug Test Patrons Evacuating Festival
At around 9.30 am on Monday 9 December, word went around punters camped out at the Wild Horses festival in Victoria’s Marysville that an announcement had been made regarding an alleged police order that the site be immediately evacuated due...
Drug Policing Causes Most of the Harms: An Interview With Former Police Sergeant Greg Denham
Last August marked the 50th anniversary of one of the most significant music festivals of all time, Woodstock. The four day event involved the coming together of close to half a million people, and as is well-known, the hippies that...
The Focus Should Be on Reducing Deaths: An Interview With Jennie Ross-King
First published on 5 December 2019 Last summer’s music festival season was unnecessarily devastating. Five young Australians died in drug-related circumstances either trying to avoid police detection or from taking drugs that they had no way of ascertaining the contents...
People in High Places are Calling for Drug Decriminalisation
The global system of drug prohibition began in the early 20th century. Since then, a series of international drug control conventions have been established, ostensibly on the basis of trying to reduce the harms that certain drugs cause in the...
NSW Greens Move to Legislate for Life-Saving Pill Testing Services
During the last music festival season, five young Australians died in drug-related circumstances at NSW events. And while the death toll was high, the lost lives were no anomaly, and the potential for more casualties is ever present. Decades of...
A Crime of Compassion: An Interview With Green Light’s Nicholas Morley
Against the backdrop of the ACT having just passed laws to legalise cannabis use, and the pending three year anniversary of the government’s highly derided cannabis medicine licensing scheme, comes a documentary that deals with the reality of medicinal cannabis...
Wodak & Shoebridge on Scipione’s Talk of Drug Law Reform
These days, it’s well understood that the war on drugs has been a monumental failure. And there’s perhaps no one better placed to understand this, than those at the frontline of enforcing the prohibitionist laws that wreak havoc in the...
The Penalties for Possessing Cocaine in NSW
“It’s just a bit of fun, I’m not hurting anyone. Everyone does it. It’s better than getting out of control on alcohol.” Indeed, the use of cocaine - a drug once used in soft drinks like Coca-Cola – is prevalent...
Canberra Has Legalised the Possession of Cannabis
As of 31 January next year, it will be legal to smoke cannabis for recreational purposes in the ACT. The territory Legislative Assembly passed laws on 25 September that make using cannabis, possessing up to 50 grams of it and...
Canberra Has Turned Its Back on Medicinal Cannabis Patients
In May 2014, Barnaby Joyce spoke out in support of legalising cannabis medicine: a campaign fronted by a young patient named Dan Haslam. And two years later, the Nationals MP helped open the nation’s first medicinal cannabis farm in memory...
