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Interview with Greg Chipp
The Beginning of the End of Drug Prohibition: An interview with Greg Chipp
The US-led the push for global drug prohibition early last century. On the domestic side, this commenced with the 1914 Harrison Act, while, internationally, Washington pressed for the first international drug control treaty, the 1925 Geneva Convention, which it refused to be a signatory to.
Over the following decades, a series of international drug control treaties were negotiated. These were eventually consolidated under the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs: which is the key document of the prohibition era.
US President Richard Nixon then launched his official war on drugs in June 1971, marking an intensification of the law enforcement arm of prohibition. His administration did so with the aim of criminalising and controlling African American communities and the rising antiwar movement.
Forty years later, the former heads of state and leading intellectuals that comprised the Global Commission on Drug Policy condemned the drug war as a failure, which has increased drug use, led to mass incarceration and caused the development of a huge transnational criminal network.
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Fentanyl Testing Strips delivered anywhere in Australia. Fentanyl is turning up in Sydney making illicit drug use even riskier. Fentanyl test strips saves lives by alerting the user to Fentanyl contamination.
On February 21 NSW Health issued a warning about methamphetamine and cocaine being contaminated with the dangerous opioid fentanyl.
Several people who had taken these illicit stimulant drugs presented to Sydney hospitals with symptoms of opioid overdose, raising the alarm. Drug tests found fentanyl and acetyl-fentanyl had caused the overdoses.
It's believed to be the first time fentanyl has been found in stimulant drugs in Australia.
People using stimulants like methamphetamine and cocaine are not looking for the depressant effects of opioids. They would not have expected their drugs to contain fentanyl.
While you never know for sure what you're getting when you buy illicit drugs, this is an extreme case.
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Drug Wars: A battle fought only with ourselves
There is nothing simple about drug use and it is essential to have a sense of perspective.
Drug use is widely considered to be an overpowering social ill, a perennial threat. Yet in truth, the picture is ambiguous in the extreme. As the historian, Lucy Inglis comments in Milk of Paradise: a History of Opium, many of us will end our lives being given morphine to dull pain.
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Australians now support legalising cannabis and pill testing
A growing number of Australians support the legalisation of cannabis, while almost three in five back the idea of pill testing, according to a new national survey.
The 2019 National Drug Strategy Household Survey also shows Australians are drinking and smoking less, but some illicit drug use is on the rise.
Importantly, this national snapshot, released on Thursday, shows the Australian community is becoming more open to less punitive measures around drug use.
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Pushing away our Poison - Brain Training Provides Hope to Beat ICE Addiction
Between 2017 and 2018, 62% of the 130,000 individuals presenting to drug and alcohol treatment were there because of problems relating to either alcohol or methamphetamine (‘ice’) use. Unfortunately, relapse after treatment remains the norm, with a national study showing that only 52% of treatment-seekers substantially reducing or quitting their substance use a year later.
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Inside the Bloody Drug War, by Antony Loewenstein
When I started writing about the war on drugs many years ago, I soon realised its connection to the other bogus war in the last decades, the war on terror. Both conflicts are unwinnable and yet countless governments around the world invest billions of dollars annually into a militarised battle that’s done nothing to address the reasons so many people consume drugs.
Instead, drug use and abuse are soaring around the world, including in Australia, and the results are clear to see; overdoses, dirty and untested pills consumed at music festivals and ever-present stigmatisation around anybody who uses illicit substances.
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Millions of Australians use, or have used, illicit substances at some point in their life, while millions more are regular users of legal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco or sleeping pills.
While some people become heavy users of alcohol or other drugs as a way of coping with past trauma or mental illness, this is not the story for millions of others. Young (and older) people use drugs and alcohol for fun, enjoyment and socialisation.
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It's Time for a Summit on Drug Decriminalisation
In describing in her findings arising from a wide ranging inquest into six fatal opioid overdose events, current illicit drug policy as “futile” and likely to exacerbate drug related harm, the NSW Deputy State Coroner, Harriet Grahame, urged the NSW Government to have the courage to commit to conducting a summit on drug decriminalisation.
On any reading of her findings, it seems clear that these are opinions directly driven by the facts as presented at the inquests and the coroner’s frustration, in the face of this evidence, at the continuing refusal or inability of the government to do more to stem the frequency of overdoses across the State.
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UN Changes Course on Drug Policy - Prioritises Human Rights
It's 110 years since international cooperation on drug control began. In February 1909 the International Opium Commission in Shanghai saw governments from around the world come together to address what was dubbed “the opium question”, by proposing a global plan to suppress illicit opium use and markets. The meeting kicked off a century-long project of ever increasing international collaboration to eradicate illicit drug use and markets, culminating in the three United Nations drug treaties adopted in 1961, 1971 and 1988.
Since the 1970s, and the start of the “war on drugs”, these efforts have been marked by the increasing use of laws focused on punishment, policing, prisons and even the military as core tools of drug enforcement. Alongside this there has also been an escalation of human rights violations linked to drug control.
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United Nations Supports Decriminalisation of Drugs
The United Nations Chief Executives Board (CEB), comprising 31 heads of UN agencies and associated programs, has released a policy statement endorsing the decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use. The same document also outlines a broader intent to shape international drug policy in terms of public health, human rights and sustainable development.
The 'directions for action' provided in the statement include a pledge 'to promote alternatives to conviction and punishment in appropriate cases, including the decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use'. This represents a significant advance from the UN's previous position.
Interview with Greg Chipp
April 29, 2021 · Paul Gregoire · 4 reactions
Fentanyl Testing Strips delivered anywhere in Australia. Fentanyl is turning up in Sydney making illicit drug use even riskier. Fentanyl test strips saves lives by alerting the user to Fentanyl contamination.
February 03, 2021 · Julaine Allan · 2 reactions
Drug Wars: A battle fought only with ourselves
July 30, 2020 · David James · 1 reaction
Australians now support legalising cannabis and pill testing
July 16, 2020 · Dr Nicole Lee · 2 reactions
Pushing away our Poison - Brain Training Provides Hope to Beat ICE Addiction
October 17, 2019 · Victoria Manning · 2 reactions
Inside the Bloody Drug War, by Antony Loewenstein
August 17, 2019 · Antony Loewenstein · 2 reactions
Let's admit Drug Use can be Fun!
May 23, 2019 · Jennifer Power · 3 reactions
It's Time for a Summit on Drug Decriminalisation
April 15, 2019 · Michael Palmer · 5 reactions
UN Changes Course on Drug Policy - Prioritises Human Rights
April 10, 2019 · · 3 reactions
United Nations Supports Decriminalisation of Drugs
March 28, 2019 · Greg Chipp · 2 reactions