The Penalties for Possessing Cocaine in NSW
“It’s just a bit of fun, I’m not hurting anyone. Everyone does it. It’s better than getting out of control on alcohol.” Indeed, the use of cocaine - a drug once used in soft drinks like Coca-Cola – is prevalent...
Canberra Has Legalised the Possession of Cannabis
As of 31 January next year, it will be legal to smoke cannabis for recreational purposes in the ACT. The territory Legislative Assembly passed laws on 25 September that make using cannabis, possessing up to 50 grams of it and...
Canberra Has Turned Its Back on Medicinal Cannabis Patients
In May 2014, Barnaby Joyce spoke out in support of legalising cannabis medicine: a campaign fronted by a young patient named Dan Haslam. And two years later, the Nationals MP helped open the nation’s first medicinal cannabis farm in memory...
Welfare Drug Testing: Morrison Intensifies the War on the Unemployed
There’s currently a meme doing the rounds of the internet that depicts Jesus feeding the multitude. At the front of the crowd stands prime minister Scott Morrison with outstretched arms, beseeching Jesus as to what he should do. And Jesus...
Lawyers Call for Drug Decriminalisation: An Interview With ALHR’s Kerry Weste
Uniting launched the Fair Treatment campaign last October, which calls for the decriminalisation of the use and personal possession of illicit drugs, along with increased investment in harm reduction and treatment. The NSW campaign has the support of over 60...
Preaching “Just Say No” Endangers Lives: Informed Decision-Making Protects Them
We live in a state where the head of government continues to spout rhetoric about drug use in line with former US first lady Nancy Reagan. The “just say no” to drugs approach remains as simple and ineffective as it...
Dutton Argues Against Calls for Drug Decriminalisation
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has granted the ice inquiry commissioner Professor Dan Howard SC the extension he requested for the tabling of his report, so as to allow more time to consider the decriminalisation of the personal possession and use...
Record Drug Busts at Music Festival – Is This How We Measure Success?
If ever there was a point in recent Australian history at which we could say the vast majority of people have had every opportunity to become well informed about the potential health dangers and personal consequences of taking illegal drugs,...
Legalise Drugs to Reduce Violent Crime: An Interview With LEAP’s Greg Denham
One of the unintended consequences of the war on drugs listed in the 2011 Global Commission on Drug Policy report is “the growth of a ‘huge criminal black market’, financed by the risk-escalated profits of supplying international demand for illicit...
NSW Police Are Using Strip Searches to Intimidate
The NSW coronial inquiry into six drug-related deaths at music festivals heard testimony last week regarding a police officer who threatened to make a strip search “nice and slow”, unless the woman being ordered to take her clothes off, confessed...
