Here's what we can learn from Drug Testing programs overseas

Queensland will become the second Australian jurisdiction to offer pill testing. While the timeline is yet to be announced, once up and running, Queenslanders who use illicit drugs can have them checked to see what they actually contain before taking them.

This is likely to reduce the risk of people overdosing on both unexpected and high-potency substances, as well as reducing illness and death from harmful additives and mixtures.

People all over the world are warming up to the idea of legalising cannabis, a drug widely regarded as relatively harmless.

But can legal drug regulation work with cocaine? Let’s put it to the test.

 ADHD and Addictions

Unfortunately, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is largely misunderstood as a diagnosis, often thought to be a childhood disorder which does not persist into the adult years. This is a common misconception and the prevalence of ADHD in the adult community is estimated to be anywhere between 5 to 10% of the population.

What is MDMA?

In the 1970s, MDMA was sold legally at clubs in America until it was banned in 1985.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Australians are the world’s second highest per capita consumers of MDMA.

If MDMA consumption was an Olympic sport we would win silver.

Law enforcement and drug law reformers have been warning for years, that fentanyl will come to Australia.

At Drug Policy Australia, we advocate for ensuring the Australian public is equipped with the information needed to make well-informed choices about what they use, so let’s make this clear.

Fentanyl is very dangerous.

Right before the pandemic shutdown shifted the focus of concern, NSW drug policy was under scrutiny with the then Berejiklian government baulking at pill testing trials to address drug-related deaths at events and rather attempting to shut down the festival industry as a response.

Then NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian further commissioned the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug Ice. However, two and a half years after it delivered 109 recommendations, the Coalition government is yet to respond, and any modest proposals raised have been shot down by cabinet.

So, it’s against this backdrop that we held the Is It Time to Legalise Drugs? forum in Sydney, with a lineup of speakers representing some of the heavyweights in the drug law reform space, who came together to discuss the long recognised need to end a century of drug prohibition.

8 things film and TV get wrong about drug and alcohol treatment

Nicole Lee, Curtin University; Jarryd Bartle, RMIT University, and Paula Ross, Australian Catholic University

Drug use and addiction are popular themes in movies and television, but they often get things very wrong. Here are eight common myths about drugs you'll see on the silver screen.

1. Rehab goes for 28 days

In the movie 28 Days, Sandra Bullock is given a choice between prison and 28 days in a rehab centre.

The 28-day program, popular in the United States, actually has nothing to do with the optimum treatment period.

Health insurance companies in the US are only prepared to fund 28 days in rehab. So the 28-day rehab model was developed around funding, not effectiveness.

We now think about three months of treatment is optimal. Treatment completion may be as important as treatment length. So completing a shorter treatment is better than dropping out of a longer one.

Confronting the reality of mass drug seizures.

The seizure of 416kg of cocaine off the Yorke Peninsula dominated mainstream media headlines last week. Journalists around the country brainlessly regurgitated the glowing press release spoon-fed to them by the Australian Federal Police’s public relations department.

Reporting diligently lauded the 21st of March operation as the largest illicit drug seizure in the history of South Australia, aggrandising the bust as an apparently monumental win against crime. Yet such coverage only obscures the reality of drug policing in Australia.

The global "War on Drugs" is one of the single-most catastrophic public policy failures in history. 

Now one Victorian MP has put forward a bill to decriminalise the personal possession and use of prohibited drugs.

The private member's bill doesn't have the support of the government or opposition, so it's highly likely to fail, but it's started an important conversation about how our drug laws are harming people, and how we can improve them.

The whole point of prohibition was to reduce drug use and drug-related harms. Not only has it failed to do so, it's had the opposite effect.

Prohibition has expanded drug markets and created a more dangerous drug supply. Drug-related deaths increased 60% worldwide between 2000 and 2015. Illicit drugs now account for 1.3% of the global disease burden.