Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation

Resources

See also this webpage, with a video with a speech by Glenn Greenwald.

Click here to view the article ‘Medical Marijuana and the Law’ by Diane E. Hoffman and Ellen Weber.

Timeline of Prohibition
The Transform website has a great timeline contains a selection of events felt to be of significance in the history of prohibition and the campaign for drug law reform. Transform says they don’t intend it to be a historically comprehensive document, but to give a sense of narrative and progress; to shed some light on why we are where we are with regard to the drug laws, and more importantly, how we can use this experience to move forward. You can find it here.

Australian Drug Policy Timeline
Hughes, Caitlin. (2010). The Australian (illicit) drug policy timeline: 1985-2010, Drug Policy Modelling Program. Last updated 31 August 2010.

The Australian (illicit) drug policy timeline provides a list of key events, policy and legislative changes that have occurred in Australia between 1985 and June 30 2010. Events are listed by jurisdiction, at the national and state/territory level. The first table includes events at the federal level. Events in the state and territories are split into two parts. The second table includes events from the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. Events from South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia are listed in the third table. DPMP updates the timeline every June and December. You can find it here.

The Alison Chesney and Eddie Killoran Memorial Lecture (Media Release, 17/11/10)

“Harm Reduction: the Advocacy of Science and the Science of Advocacy” – Professor Gerry Stimson

Conservative Party demonising of drug users is a rewriting of history – needle exchange and methadone programmes were introduced by the Thatcher government says leading UK social scientist Gerry Stimson

Stimson makes the case for a revolution in Public Health, shifting the focus onto the ´bad behaviour` of policy makers who ignore the powerful scientific evidence behind harm reduction

Wednesday, November 17, 2010 (London, UK)–The current campaign by the Conservatives to demonise drug users and portray them as living off tax payers´ money is a blatant re-writing of history, said Professor Gerry Stimson, retiring Executive Director of the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), ahead of the inaugural Alison Chesney and Eddie Killoran Memorial Lecture that he will deliver tonight to over 300 people at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The lecture will be chaired by Professor Peter Piot, the new Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and formerly Executive Director of the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS. Lord Ramsbotham, Chair of the Cross Party Group on Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Harm Reduction will also make a short introduction to the lecture.

“The Conservative Party’s attempts to paint drug users as a burden on tax payers and blame this on Labour are a fiction,” said Stimson. “This rewriting of history forgets that it was the Thatcher government that introduced harm reduction into government policy in 1988. It also ignores the fact the prescribing heroin and morphine for medical treatment was something that was enshrined under law as far back as the first Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920.

“This was a medical forerunner of the harm reduction that we know today – acting cautiously to help the patient lead a useful and fairly normal life. That was why those patients in the nineteen sixties got heroin prescriptions. It is far removed from some of today’s headlines about people being ‘parked on methadone.”

Professor Stimson was a member of the first group of researchers to evaluate needle exchange programmes in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980´s at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He was also on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs committee that designed the United Kingdom harm reduction response. That was a public health success, and emulated in other countries. Stimson will tell his audience that public health policy requires a new revolution that starts to look at why policy makers continue to behave “badly” and ignore all the consistent scientific evidence presented to them when it came to decision making.

“For too long, public health has focused on the powerless, trying to get drug users, and drinkers and smokers to change their risky behaviour,” said Stimson. “Why are there so many studies of the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of drug users and so few studies of the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of policy makers when it is the behaviours of the latter that are a much more important problem?”

Stimson will say that there are a number of reasons behind this “bad” behaviour of policy makers. Drugs policy has to fit with the current ‘big idea’, he will argue.

“Drugs policy had to fit – under Labour – with the idea of ‘rights and responsibilities’ and of being ‘tough on crime and the causes of crime’. Now, with the Coalition ‘we’re all in it together’, government will be ‘firm but fair’ and the ‘big society’ will emerge to fill the gaps.

“This is why recovery gets good press. Harm reduction is portrayed as part of a Britain broken by Labour, burdened by debt, and over-dependent on the state. David Cameron’s recent comments at the Conservative Party conference that there are 150,000 people in Britain today who get their heroin substitutes on the state implies a new ethos: a recovering Britain requires recovering addicts. ”

Most treatment providers and the National Treatment agency have been busy rewriting their aims as driven by the goal of abstinent recovery rather than challenging the new orthodoxy. Stimson will argue that the new Public Health Service should have wider and more ambitious aims.

“Options for recovery are necessary, for those who want it and are able to achieve it, with or without medication. But to base a whole strategy on this is dangerous. Recovery is only relevant to a tiny proportion of drug users. Treatment providers, clinicians and public health experts should be sounding warning bells to government about the risks they are taking with the public health.”

Stimson’s lecture will trace the history of science and advocacy in the field of Harm Reduction from his early days as a researcher, his time as a consultant to the World Health Organisation through to his period as head of the International Harm Reduction Association. He will argue that science has been important in the development of harm reduction policy and cite examples where its take up has been both broadly implemented in many countries (drink driving, needle exchange) and marginalised (alternatives to smokeable tobacco). He will conclude by suggesting that here have been major successes in advocating for harm reduction, but that the science of advocacy is underdeveloped.

A copy of Professor Gerry Stimson’s lecture will be available at 18.30 GMT Wednesday November 17 online (click to access).

The Costs of Tobacco, Alcohol and Illicit Drug Abuse to Australian Society in 2004-5
A report by David J. Collins of Macquarie University and Helen M. Lapsley of the University of Queensland and University of New South Wales. (Click here to access)
(c) Commonwealth of Australia 2008

Drug Law Reform Websites

Australian sites:

The Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA) is the peak, national, non-government organisation representing the interests of the Australian alcohol and other drugs sector, providing a national voice for people working to reduce the harm caused by alcohol and other drugs: http://www.adca.org.au/

Anex promotes and supports Needle and Syringe Programs (NSPs) and the evidence-based approach of harm reduction: http://www.anex.org.au/

Australian Crime Commission publishes the annual Illicit Drug Reports: http://www.crimecommission.gov.au/

Australian Drug Foundation promotes working together to prevent alcohol and other drug problems in communities. It promotes evidenced-based policies on a platform of harm minimisation. The site includes submissions and position papers: http://www.adf.org.au/

Australian Drug Information Network (ADIN) provides a central point of access to quality Internet-based alcohol and drug information provided by prominent organisations in Australia and internationally. This site IS funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and managed by the Australian Drug Foundation: http://www.adin.com.au

The Australian Institute of Criminology produces much material relating to illicit drugs, including its Drug Use Monitoring project of police detainees provides early warning of drug use trends. This is accessible through http://www.aic.gov.au/research/drugs/index.html.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare conducts the periodical National Drug Strategy Household Surveys and publishes much other information on the burden of disease associated with substance abuse. Much of this is gathered under “Alcohol and other drugs”: http://www.aihw.gov.au/

The Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) is the principal advisory body to Government on drug policy. It publishes a magazine, “Of Substance”, issues position papers and commissions publications on issues like cannabis, drug use in families and drug use in prisons.

Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform which is affiliated with the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation Submissions is committed to preventing tragedy that arises from illicit drug use. Its website includes the group’s submissions and other publications on an extensive range of drug policy issues: http://www.ffdlr.org.au/

Family Drug Support assists families throughout Australia to deal with drug issues in a way that strengthens relationships and achieves positive outcomes: http://www.fds.org.au/

Hepatitis Australia, which works toward a nation free of new cases of viral hepatitis, promotes the provision of sterile syringes and other practices preventing the contraction of viral hepatitis by injecting drug users: http://www.hepatitisaustralia.com/

National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at the University of New South Wales is a research body. Some of what it produces is available on its website: http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/

National Drug Research Institute (NDRI) at Curtin University of Technology is a research body. Some of this is produces is available on its website: http://www.ndri.curtin.edu.au/

The National Drug Strategy (NDS). This involves co-operation between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments. The site includes important publications and information about the National Drug Strategy and the advisory structures that support the Strategy: http://www.nationaldrugstrategy.gov.au/

Overseas sites:

The Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Programme aims to promote objective debate on the effectiveness, direction and content of drug policies at national and international level.It produces reports, briefing papers and other publications on drug policy: http://www.internationaldrugpolicy.net/

The Canadian Harm Reduction Network. The network’s site includes selective access to the International Journal of Drug Policy and open access to the Harm Reduction Journal: http://www.canadianharmreduction.com/

Drug and Alcohol Findings is a British site that publishes summaries of research in support of effective responses to drug and alcohol problems: http://www.findings.org.uk/

The Drug Policy Alliance Network (DPA Network) is the leading organization in the United States promoting policy alternatives to the drug war that are grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights: http://www.drugpolicy.org/

DrugSense. This American site seeks to provide accurate information relevant to drug policy in order to heighten awareness of the extreme damage of the current flawed and failed “War on Drugs.” DrugSense aims to inform the public of the existence of rational alternatives to the drug war, and to help organize citizens to bring about needed reforms: http://www.drugsense.org/

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction of the European Union was set up to provide factual, objective, reliable and comparable information concerning drugs, drug addiction and their consequences. It publishes an annual report of the state of drugs problem in Europe: http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/

International Harm Reduction Association. The Association’s mission is to promote harm reduction on a global basis through an integrated programme of research, advocacy, information sharing, networking and collaboration: http://www.ihra.net/

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). Founded in 2002, LEAP is made up of current and former members of law enforcement who believe the existing drug policies have failed in their intended goals of addressing the problems of crime, drug abuse, addiction, juvenile drug use, stopping the flow of illegal drugs into this country and the internal sale and use of illegal drugs. It believes that by fighting a war on drugs the governments have increased the problems of society and made them far worse. A system of regulation rather than prohibition is a less harmful, more ethical and a more effective public policy. It was founded in the United States but has members world-wide: http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php.

The Media Awareness Project (MAP). This American site contains well organised collection of newspaper articles bearing on drug policy from a number of countries including Australia and New Zealand: http://drugnews.org/.

The New Zealand Drug Foundation is committed to reducing and preventing the harm caused by drugs in New Zealand. This includes social and health harms caused by legal drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol, as well as illegal drugs, such as cannabis: http://www.nzdf.org.nz/

Transform Drug Policy Foundation is a very well informed British organisation that exists to promote sustainable health and wellbeing by bringing about a just, effective and humane system to regulate and control drugs at local, national and international levels: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/

UN Drug Agencies

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC ). is the umbrella organization that makes up the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and the Centre for International Crime Prevention (CICP). It also includes the Terrorism Prevention Branch and the Global Programmes against Money Laundering, Corruption, Organized Crime and Trafficking in Human beings. With the World Health Organization it supports effective measures to prevent the spread of blood borne diseases including the provision of sterile syringes in prisons: www.unodc.org.

Commission for Narcotic Drugs (CND). The Commission claims to be the central policy-making body within the United Nations system dealing with drug-related matters. It analyses the world drug situation and develops proposals to strengthen the international drug control system to combat the world drug problem”. It is also the “the governing body of UNDCP”. www.unodc.org/unodc/en/cnd.html

United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP). It was founded in 1991 with a mission to educate the world about the dangers of drug abuse. The Programme aims to strengthen international action against drug production, trafficking and drug-related crime through alternative development projects, crop monitoring and anti-money laundering programmes: www.unodc.org/unodc/en/undcp.html

International Narcotics Control Board (INCB): It was established in 1968 by the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961. It is ostensibly an independent and quasi-judicial control body for the implementation of the United Nations drug conventions. Its 13 members which presently include an Australian, Major Brian Watters, serve in their personal capacity. It criticises the Sydney medically supervised injecting room: www.incb.org

World Health Organisation (WHO) “The objective of WHO is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.” They are the United Nations specialized agency for health involved in various health promotion projects around the world including harm reduction with drug users: www.who.int