The United Nations has recently announced that Peru has taken over Colombia as the largest producer of illegal coca leaves, the base for the drug cocaine. This comes as Brazil becomes the second biggest…
The recent closure of illicit drugs website Silk Road by the FBI has been hailed as a decisive blow in the fight against organised crime and another victory in the global War on Drugs. Although a minor…
Drug mules have barely been out of the UK news this August. First the “Peru two”, Melissa Reid from Scotland and Michaela Connolly from Ireland, were arrested attempting to leave Lima with just under 12kgs…
Calls for the legalisation of marijuana in the Americas have gathered pace in recent years. Nearly half US states have decreed in favour of the legal use of medical marijuana and last month Uruguay was…
Uruguay is set to become the first country to legalise marijuana use, cultivation and possession following a century of often authoritarian prohibition laws across the globe. In a landmark vote on President…
According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, Australians are now the world’s eighth highest per capita users of cocaine. Cocaine use within the wealthier echelons of society is so unremarkable…
Australia21, of which I am one of the directors, released its second report on drug prohibition on this morning. The report calls for a redefinition of how we deal with drugs to primarily a health and…
The mantra “war against drugs” sounds great from a distance, but on closer inspection, it’s a misleading, sweeping generalisation. There are, in fact, many different, contradictory and inconsistent policies…
We should all be concerned about our laws on illegal drugs because they affect all of us – people who use drugs; who have family members using drugs; health professionals seeing people for drug-related…
Australians have always loved their drugs – more so than any other nation in which those same drugs are proscribed and used under threat of native, criminal penalties. Drug taking is a national trait…
Former Brazilian President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has argued that the war on drugs has failed and cannabis should be decriminalised. He argued that the hardline approach has brought “disastrous” consequences…
The Australia21 report argues the “war on drugs” has failed and we should consider other options for controlling drugs, such as decriminalisation or regulation. In addition to these arguments, an important…
The Australia21 report on illicit drugs draws much-needed attention to many serious issues, including the major role played by corrupt police in drug distribution networks. The role played by drugs in…
It’s 1974 again. I am 25 and a member of Lionel Murphy’s national Drug Advisory Council. Occasionally I am a drug educator with my mate, psychologist Simon Haselton, for the NSW Health department. As a…
The Australia21 thinktank has today released a report describing the war on drugs as a failure. Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr, part of the working group that developed the report, today told the ABC…
It’s official – the so-called War on Drugs has failed. A report released by thinktank Australia21 in parliament today makes it clear that not only has it failed miserably, but that political elites around…
Australia must abandon its failed war on drugs and reopen the debate over legalising and regulating their use, according to a report to be released tomorrow. The report, emotively titled “The prohibition…
Around 6% of the world’s population aged 15 to 64 use illicit drugs – that’s 250 million people. It’s a rapidly changing population, with many different pathways to illicit drug use and new users constantly…