Prohibition Causes the Harm: An Interview With Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform
There’s a rising awareness that the century-old system of drug prohibition is failing. It’s evident in the global moves to legalise cannabis, the internationally-lauded Portuguese drug decriminalisation model and the widespread calls to start treating drug use as a health issue, not...
NSW Police Continue Unfair Exclusion Policy at Music Festivals
There was a public outcry mid-year after NSW police began employing a new strategy, whereby punters were denied entry to music festivals following a positive indication by a drug detection dog even though no illicit substances were subsequently found. And despite...
Pill Testing, Not Penalties: An Interview With Take Control’s Kieran Palmer
Two young people died after taking drugs at the Defqon.1 festival in September. At the time, there was saturation policing at the music festival. There were 194 police officers deployed at the event, some of whom were accompanied by drug detection dogs....
Judge Recognises that Medicinal Cannabis Producers are Not Criminals
The benefits of cannabis medicine are becoming widely accepted within the Australian community. However, laws around the non-profit cultivation of the plant to help the sick continue to carry the same level of criminality as the laws for those who...
Church-led Coalition Calls for Drug Decriminalisation
On Friday morning, Sir Richard Branson launched Uniting’s Fair Treatment campaign at Sydney Town Hall. The well-known drug reform advocate threw his support behind the campaign that’s pushing for the decriminalisation of the possession of drugs for personal use, as well as...
Australia’s First Cannabis Medicine: An Interview With Little Green Pharma’s Fleta Solomon
Locally-grown and produced medicinal cannabis products are finally available on the Australian market. Western Australian company Little Green Pharma is the first amongst a number of producers to deliver the long-awaited local product since cannabis medicines were legalised. However, this...
Cannabis Legalisation Is Inevitable: An Interview With ADLaRI’s Ben Mostyn
Global drug prohibition had its beginnings over a century ago. And the intensification of its law enforcement aspect – known as the war on drugs – was launched by Nixon in 1971. In NSW, this prohibitive system is reflected in the...
The Cannabis Climate in Australia: An Interview With SA Cannabis Council’s Matthew Rowland
Attitudes to the cannabis plant are rapidly changing around the globe. Recreational cannabis is now legal in nine US states, while Canada is set to legalise it nationwide. And medicinal cannabis is now readily available in 31 jurisdictions throughout the US. The...
NSW Police Force Doubles Strip Searches
The NSW Police Force has nearly doubled the number of strip searches it carries out after positive indications from drug detection dogs. In 2016, police officers carried out around 590 strip searches after an initial search turned up nothing, while in...
Calls to Stop Baseless Ban on Amyl Nitrite
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has just released an interim decision that would see amyl nitrite and other nitrite inhalants banned across Australia. The proposal would move these drugs into schedule 9 of the Poisons Standard along with substances such...
