People who use party drugs say it gives them energy to dance and socialise, reduces their inhibitions and enhances their feelings of connection to others.
Microdosers take such small quantities of psychedelic substances that there are no noticeable effects.
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Around 35% of Australians have tried marijuana at some point in their life, and 11% have tried ecstasy. Most people who try drugs do so for a short period in their lives – mostly in their 20s.
Reagent test kits are not as effective as specialist testing. But it’s better than nothing.
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With several music festival patrons dying this year the pill testing debate is in full swing. Yet people can already purchase legally available test kits. Do they work?
Quetiapine is increasingly prescribed a sleeping drug.
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Quetiapine is an antipsychotic drug to treat severe mental illness, but it makes people feel sleepy, so has also been used as a sleeping pill – by prescription and illicitly.
Around half of prisoners have a substance dependence.
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Some drug and alcohol programs
currently used in prisons have little evidence to support them.
Synthetic cathinones are sometimes sold as “bath salts” or “plant food”, but are intended to be snorted or swallowed for their psychoactive effects.
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Ephylone belongs to the growing class of designer stimulants called synthetic cathinones. The effects have been described as a mix between MDMA and cocaine, while others are more similar to ice.
The Victorian report recommends the law be changed to allow peers to distribute needles and other clean injecting equipment.
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Victoria should implement a new report’s recommendation to allow peers to distribute clean injecting equipment, but it needs to go further to ensure safe drug use in prison.
In Australia, cocaine is most commonly snorted.
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Phenibut is a central nervous system depressant, and is currently being investigated for its possible role in seven overdoses at a Queensland school.
Baby boomers who drink and take drugs risk a range of physical and mental problems that younger substance users don’t necessarily face.
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Social Services Minister Christian Porter told Q&A that ‘rates of drug use amongst unemployed are 2.5 times higher than amongst employed people’. Is that correct?
Generally, people under 40 have reported a decrease in recent illicit drug usage since 2001, while people 40 or older have reported an increase in recent years.
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The proportion of population who use legal and illegal drugs has remained stable or trended down. Fewer young people are using, but the proportion of older people using drugs and alcohol has grown.
Illicit drugs are priced differently depending upon which stage of the supply chain they are located.
AAP/Alex Murray
Let’s take claims about the value of drug seizures with a grain of salt.
People who take GHB at dance parties say it makes them feel euphoric and less inhibited. But the drug is easy to overdose on.
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It’s easy to overdose on the recreational drug GHB, as recent cases in Melbourne show.
Medically supervised injecting facilities can prevent overdoses turning into a medical emergency. So why has progress in Victoria stalled?
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There’s no legal reason why Victoria can’t have its own medically supervised drug injecting room to prevent more overdoses, despite political setbacks.
The not-for-profit UK group The Loop said it tested the drug ecstasy with ‘loop lasers’ at a festival in July 2016.
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Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said conducting on-site drug tests at public events “safely and quickly is not really a practical option”. But the technology is available.
Police seized 200kg of methamphetamine during a drug bust in Perth, Western Australia, in May 2016.
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West Australian Labor leader Mark McGowan said his state has the “worst rate of methamphetamine usage in the country”. We asked the experts to check the evidence.