Keep Poppers Legal: An Interview With the Nitrite Group’s Paul Kidd
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) released an interim decision last year that would see amyl nitrite and other alkyl nitrite inhalants banned. This means these substances popularly referred to as poppers would be moved into schedule 9 of the Poisons Standard along...
Pill Testing Saves Lives, and Does Not Lead to Increased Drug Use
In the wake of a spate of recent deaths at Australian music festivals, the mainstream media is starting to report on the potential benefits of pill testing - and politicians from the major parties are starting to listen. The main...
Curbing Rising Strip Searches: An Interview With the Safe And Sound Campaign’s Samantha Lee
Over the last half decade, reports have indicated that the use of strip searches by NSW police following a positive indication from a drug detection dog has been become more routine. This is especially disconcerting as sniffer dogs get it wrong two-thirds...
Police Claim to Have Disrupted Drug Importation Rings
Yesterday, a 70-year old man came before Fairfield Local Court charged with commercial drug supply and participating in a criminal group after the NSW Police Force’s State Crime Command executed search warrants upon four homes across Sydney when they detected...
NZ to Implement Pill Testing, While Aussie MPs Bury Their Heads in the Sand
NZ police minister Stuart Nash said last week that he thinks independent pill testing tents are “a fantastic idea and should be installed at all our festivals”. He added that a “more compassionate and restorative approach” to illicit drugs should be...
NSW Police Treat Strip-Searches As Routine Procedure
The use of strip searches by the NSW Police Force (NSWPF) has recently skyrocketed. Over the last four years, strip search use has risen by close to 47 percent, with 3,735 carried out in the year 2014-15, while 5,483 people...
Man Imprisoned for Buying Drugs on Dark Web
A former A-grade Darwin rugby league player has been sent to prison for supplying drugs in the form of hundreds of MDMA tablets sent through the ‘dark web’. The Supreme Court found that 27 year-old plumbing assistant and under-eights coach,...
Representing Festival Interests: An Interview With the Australian Festival Association
Safety at music festivals is an issue that’s been of utmost concern recently. Indeed, over the last four months of the current festival season, five young Australians have died at events due to suspected drug overdoses. In response to the...
NSW Labor May Introduce Pill Testing if Elected
The current music festival season has been a tragedy. Just four months in and five young Australians have died due to suspected drug overdoses. Four of these deaths have occurred in this state, one of which happened last Saturday night....
The Dangers of Laws Against Drug Supply Causing Death: An Interview With Urban Survivor Union’s Louise Vincent
On the second last sitting day of the parliamentary year, the Berejiklian government passed legislation that created the new offence of supply of drugs causing death. This latest drug war tactic can see an individual imprisoned for supplying a drug that proves lethal...