Arresting Drivers for Using Cold and Flu Tablets Will Not Save Lives
NSW roads minister Melinda Pavey has announced there will be an expansion of substances that can ‘influence’ drivers for the purpose of laws against driving under the influence (DUI). She has also announced a strategy designed to assess whether individuals...
Indictable Drug Supply Cases Can Now be Finalised in the Local Court
Until recently, cases of drug supply which involved more than the ‘indictable quantity’ but less than the commercial quantity could not be finalised in the NSW Local Court - they were ‘strictly indictable’ which meant they had to be committed to...
Criminal Laws Only Deter When They Are Seen as Just
Politicians often invoke tough-on-crime rhetoric to win votes - playing to popular perceptions that penalties are too weak and that, when dealing with defendants, magistrates and judges should ‘lock’em up and throw away the key’. There is also a popular...
New Road Laws: Tougher DUI Penalties, Targeting Phone Use and Cocaine Testing
On 1 July, a series of new road safety laws will come into effect across New South Wales. The new laws will add cocaine to the list of drugs police test drivers for, significantly increase the penalties for driving under...
Premier Wants Sniffer Dogs in Schools
The present heavy-handed approach to illicit drug use has been widely been discredited by former police commissioners, politicians and health professionals. Instead of curbing the use of the illegal drugs, it’s accepted it increases the harms associated with substance use. However,...
Church of Ubuntu Secretary Challenges Suppression Charges
This Saturday marks a year since a boy who suffers from spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy was taken from the care of his parents. On May 19 last year, NSW police and Family and Community Services (FACS) removed the boy from...
The Rights of People Who Use Drugs: An Interview With INPUD’s Judy Chang
The war on drugs has failed. This is a reality that’s increasingly being acknowledged around the globe, as communities start to realise that the outcomes produced by this intensification of drug law enforcement have been overwhelmingly destructive. The close to...
Australia’s First Sanctioned Pill Testing Trial Is Just the Beginning
The resounding success of Australia’s first government-sanctioned pill testing trial at the Groovin the Moo festival in Canberra last Sunday drew a line in the sand of this nation’s harm reduction landscape. Before it took place, the voices of those...
Anti-Woman Movement Appears to Have Incited Toronto Attack
Alek Minassian ploughed a rented van into pedestrians along a 2 kilometre stretch of road in North Toronto on April 23. The 25-year-old college student killed 10 people and injured 14 more, in what witnesses said was a purposeful attack. Described...
Just Legalise It: An Interview with Australian Greens Leader Richard Di Natale
A large number of Australians breathed a collective sigh of relief on April 16, as Greens leader Richard Di Natale announced that his party is proposing that recreational cannabis use be legalised nationally. Drug law reformists and harm reduction experts have...
