Search results for: “what is harm minimisation”
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Promoters pull plug on pill testing trial
“It’s a setback, it’s a delay,” Harm Minimisation Australia President Gino Vumbaca tells AJP. “Canberra has a unique situation where some major areas of land are owned by the Federal Government by the National Capital Authority, which is not an independent authority. “My understanding is that the promoter was put under enormous pressure, he hadn’t had…
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Spilt Milk pulls out of Australia’s first pill testing trial
Acting Minister for Health Shane Rattenbury told ABC Radio Canberra this morning he’d heard rumours and was concerned that pill testing wouldn’t go ahead.However, he said the Government had “made all the right steps”. “The ACT Government has approved pill testing and believes that’s it’s a valuable harm minimisation measure,” he said. […]
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ACT Labor conference forces caucus to consider pill testing at Spilt Milk
The ACT Labor caucus will be forced to consider pill testing at Spilt Milk 2017 after a motion was unanimously passed at its conference on Saturday. Pressure has been mounting on the government to allow harm minimisation groups to help people test their illicit drugs for dangerous substances. […]
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Tough response to ice ‘failing’: Palmer
Mick Palmer, who served as AFP commissioner from 1994 to 2001, says approaching ice use as social and health problem rather than a law enforcement issue would be more effective in curbing use and supply. “The whole aim of our illicit drug policy at the moment is harm minimisation. We’ve done nothing to minimise harm…
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Australia Is Lagging Behind On Safe Injecting Rooms And It’s Killing People
No one in the field is claiming that MSICs will solve the state’s drug problem — the coroner’s report explicitly said they were not the “silver bullet” — but when displayed alongside the state’s other harm minimisation policies centred on drug use, it would seem surely seem like a natural step? […]
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Ice and Busts: The Lost War on Drugs in Australia
The ministers traffic in votes and illusions, and finding drugs provides a false incentive for both. What is needed, as The Age editorial surmised in November last year, is a policy “in favour of a harm minimisation strategy based on decriminalisation, regulation and education.” Paramilitary approaches should be ditched, and resources channeled into health. […]
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Rainbow Serpent organisers call for pill testing after drug deaths in Melbourne
“We’ve got the best medical set up and response team in Australia…and we’re trying to give people harm minimisation strategies for looking after themselves. This is not about ideology, this is about saving human lives.” […]
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The ‘war on drugs’ has failed, and Australia must change its policies
The Age has for years been arguing the policy should be dumped in favour of a harm minimisation strategy based on decriminalisation, regulation and education. We continue to so advocate, and believe the resources being wasted on this misguided, indefensible “war” should be diverted from the criminal justice system to the health system, where there…
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Super strength Ecstasy, mega dose opiates and the N-bomb flooding Australia in deadliest summer of drugs
“With no pill testing program here or harm minimisation culture like there is in Europe, we are estimating a truly abysmal summer of drug overdoses.” […]
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Troy Grant: the one NSW minister who should resign
At a harm minimisation summit at parliament house in August, an exasperated Harm Reduction Australia president Gino Vumbaca revealed that he had written to Grant inviting him to discuss issues of pill testing at music festivals. […]