Taking Pollies on a Journey: Uniting’s Emma Maiden on the Promise of the NSW Drug Summit
The long-sought-after 2024 NSW Drug Summit will open this Friday in the southwestern regional town of Griffith, prior to moving on to the Northern Rivers town of Lismore for a day of hearings next Monday, and over the 4th and...
NSW Police Are Strip Searching Around 100 Civilians at Public Train Stations Annually
New South Wales police officers accompanied by drug detection dogs randomly searching commuters at train stations have been part of life in Sydney since NSW parliament passed laws coming into effect in February 2002, that permitted the warrantless use of...
Moving Away from War Against Drugs Brings Enormous Benefits
The global failure of the decades-long war on drugs has resulted in a myriad of issues for jurisdictions that continue to plough resources into enforcement and retain a model which sees addiction as a criminal law problem rather than a...
“The Majority of Strip Searches Are Illegal”: An Interview with Redfern Legal Centre’s Sam Lee
The NSW Police Force conducted 2,487 strip searches in the field across this state over the financial year 2022-23. And of these searches 13.8 percent were conducted upon First Nations people, despite the Indigenous community only accounting for 3.4 percent...
NSW Government’s Drug Diversion Scheme is an Abject Failure
The Early Drug Diversion Initiative that was quietly implemented by the Minns government early this year, has again been found to be an abject failure, and no one who’s been paying attention to the drug law reform debate in NSW...
Former Magistrate Heilpern Tells It Straight on Parochial NSW Cannabis Prohibition
When former NSW Lismore Magistrate David Heilpern gave up the gavel a few years back, the NSW Northern Rivers community were saddened to see him go, as instead of applying major party ethics at the bench, he was a judicial...
NSW Government Re-Commits to Failed Zero Tolerance Approach Ahead of Drug Summit
NSW is so ready for drug law reform that it hurts to watch a party like NSW Labor come to power, with many members, just like all the NSW Greens, having been actively campaigning on the need for reform for...
NSW Refuses to Decriminalise Cannabis, Despite Top Lawyers Telling Inquiry It’s High Time
Established in March this by the Premier and Finance Committee, the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the state’s regulatory framework for cannabis has as a chief concern whether to decriminalise the widely recreationally used, yet still illegal, psychoactive plant. Yet, on...
NSW Drug Summit Agenda: Decriminalisation, Drug Detection Dogs and Deemed Supply
The Minns government has finally announced it will be holding its preelection promised NSW Drug Summit, which will comprise of a four day forum with two regional dates set for October, along with two dates of hearings to be held...
As Victoria Trials Pill Testing, It’s Time to Save NSW Youths Not Punish Them with Death
In late 2015, as the volume on the pill testing campaign was turning up due to a recent spate of festival deaths, there was a boat packed with pollies guarding the waters around prohibitive state drug regimes, with then NSW...
