Items tagged with harm reduction

Item title Description
Music festivals are offering to test the safety of people’s drugs, and police increasingly like the idea [04.01.2019] For a long time, authorities at festivals in Australia and elsewhere almost entirely focused on preventing people from taking drugs in the first plac ...
New Zealand embraces pill testing as Australian politicians resist [03.01.2019] As Australian politicians continue to rule out pill testing at music festivals, New Zealand appears to be embracing the controversial practice. The c ...
A promising way to help drug users is ‘severely lacking’ around the world, report says [11.12.2018] Global funding for harm reduction programs is in “crisis,” according to the latest Global State of Harm Reduction report, potentially threatening the ...
Testing drugs at festivals is ‘a lifesaver’, study finds [09.12.2018] An alarming rise in drug-related deaths at music festivals can be countered by testing illicit substances onsite, according to the first academic stu ...
War against drug users ineffective for combating abuse: Study [04.12.2018] The government’s focus on jailing drug users while providing only little funding to help users get healthy again is not effective in combating drug a ...
Harm reduction is the right way to treat drug abuse [24.11.2018] Portugal’s policies are based on “harm reduction” approaches pioneered in countries such as Switzerland in the 1980s. The idea is to emphasise treatm ...
‘An argument that made no sense at all’ [05.10.2018] Former Gov. Ed Rendell announced that he is incorporating a nonprofit, called Safehouse, that will work to open a safe injection site in Philadelphia ...
Seek drug reform within international law: Tom Blickman [01.10.2018] Dating back to the latter part of 1800s, precisely in 1894-95, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission consisting of medical experts of Indian and British o ...
Dutch cut overdose deaths by dispensing pure heroin [15.07.2018] Public-health experts in the Netherlands say free distribution of government-funded heroin is one reason that drug-related deaths are far less common ...
Government won't 'stand in the way' of drug testing at festivals, says Home Office [09.07.2018] The Home Office “would not stand in the way” of drug testing at clubs and festivals, it said. It follows calls from experts and campaigners for music ...
The year Mexico legalised drugs [18.06.2018] On 5 January 1940, Mexico's left-wing president, Lázaro Cárdenas, signed the new Federal Regulation of Drug Addiction into law. The new legislation w ...
Stop blaming banned drugs for the devastation caused by prohibition [07.06.2018] New Zealand was poised for drug reform in 2007 when the Law Commission was tasked to review the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. In 2011 after a four-year i ...
Is Sweden's zero-tolerance approach to drugs a failing model? [17.05.2018] Sweden is accustomed to being praised for its forward-thinking approach, but there's one area where many feel it lies behind the curve. The country's ...
“The drug market is thriving” while the Commission on Narcotic Drugs limps along [08.04.2018] “The drug market is thriving” is one of the key messages in UNODC’s 2017 World Drug Report. This is an important admission from the UN’s lead agency ...
Norway's drug policies 'could set example for rest of the world' [22.03.2018] Norway’s drug laws could be an example for the rest of the world, leading healthcare and police figures from around the world have said. Drug policy ...
Drugs should not be in the hands of organized crime [25.02.2018] Drug overdoses are one of the leading causes of death in the United States and are contributing to decline in life expectancy. The opioid epidemic ha ...
It’s about ‘harm-reduction’, not ‘recreational cannabis’ [25.02.2018] Malta is poised to become a centre for the production of medical marijuana – while also relaxing its cannabis legislation further – after decades of ...
Plans for heroin to be prescribed to addicts in West Midlands [12.02.2018] Doctors in the West Midlands could soon be prescribing heroin for addicts, who would be invited to inject themselves with clean syringes in drug cons ...
A huge step backward on opioids [24.01.2018] The latest statistics on the overdose crisis -- roughly 64,000 deaths in the United States in 2016 -- also reveal that fentanyl and other synthetic o ...
Could a medically supervised distribution program be the answer to the opioid crisis? [15.01.2018] Canada should develop a regulated program to distribute opioids and prevent deaths if it wants to address the opioid overdose crisis, argues a commen ...
Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it? [05.12.2017] In 2001, Portugal became the first country to decriminalise the possession and consumption of all illicit substances. Rather than being arrested, tho ...
Supervised injection sites could stop untold opioid-related deaths [01.12.2017] In addition to the legal issues, the heavy stigma around heroin and other opioids driving the nation's overdose crisis can push individuals into the ...
Inside Crackland: the open-air drug market that São Paulo just can’t kick [27.11.2017] The brazen drug scene of Cracolândia is unlike nearly anything in any city in the world – hundreds and sometimes thousands of addicts, congregating o ...
People are dying because of ignorance, not because of opioids [19.10.2017] The vast majority of opioid users do not become addicts. Users’ chances of becoming addicted increase if they are white, male, young and unemployed a ...
Commission makes recommendations for tackling opioid crisis in North America [03.10.2017] The Global Commission on Drug Policy has issued recommendations on tackling North America's opioid crisis, calling for the immediate expansion of har ...
Edging forward [30.09.2017] Diplomatic processes at the United Nations are notoriously slow and difficult, perhaps increasingly so in a modern world of multi-polar geopolitics a ...
How to win a war on drugs [22.09.2017] Decades ago, the United States and Portugal both struggled with illicit drugs and took decisive action — in diametrically opposite directions. The U. ...
Testing of illicit drugs to be done at Australian event for first time [22.09.2017] The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government has agreed to allow pill testing at a coming music festival, in an effort to reduce deaths and harm ...
Toronto's guerrilla war on drug overdoses [15.09.2017] Nurses and volunteers watch over drug users at the Toronto's first pop-up supervised drug-use site. In the month since the site started operating in ...
Fatal fentanyl overdoses rise as Australians turn to more potent painkillers [31.08.2017] Concerns are growing that more Australians addicted to pharmaceutical painkillers are turning to highly potent forms of opioids, such as fentanyl. A ...
How the war on drugs fueled the fentanyl crisis [29.08.2017] A staggering 59,000 people died of drug overdose in 2016 according to a recent New York Times analysis. Annual overdose deaths in the US have already ...
Ottawa rejects expert calls to decriminalize illegal opioids [28.08.2017] Ottawa says it has no plans to consider decriminalizing hard drugs, such as heroin, despite calls from local politicians, health officials and expert ...
Iran plans to decriminalise drug use allowing government to give diluted drugs to addicts [27.07.2017] Iran could be on the verge of decriminalising some forms of drug use to allow the government to distribute drugs to addicts. By allowing the governme ...
The EU adopts its most progressive drug action plan ever [25.07.2017] Although it was without much fanfare that the European Commission, in July 2017, published the new Action Plan on Drugs (2017-2020), the drug policy ...
Why João Doria’s war on drugs is doomed [12.07.2017] When São Paulo Mayor João Doria set out to fulfil a campaign promise and rid the city of its cracolândia (crackland), an area that was home to a grou ...
It's time to end SA's war on drugs [29.06.2017] Bluetooth nyaope, dagga, dealers and associated rhetoric often dominate the headlines on the issue of drug use. The supply and consumption of drugs — ...
Support users, don't punish them: Ex-AFP boss' radical ideas to beat the drug trade [13.06.2017] For over half a century governments in Australia have relied heavily on law enforcement to curb the drug trade and reduce drug use. But despite huge ...
An experiment helps heroin users test their street drugs for fentanyl [16.05.2017] Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is "similar to morphine but can be 50 to 100 times more potent," according to the National Institute on Drug Abus ...
WHO and UNDP change in leadership: What views on drug policy and harm reduction? [04.05.2017] The UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs held in April 2016 has been organized by the international drug control entities, but has confirmed ...
Spice ruins lives and costs taxpayers a fortune. It doesn’t have to be this way [28.04.2017] Spice-induced “zombie” outbreaks in New York and in Manchester have hit the headlines in the past year. Use of these new damaging and powerful forms ...
Drug controls are 'absolutely pathetic,' activist says regulation will save lives [25.04.2017] A Vancouver based drug policy researcher has been working for decades to get the federal government to regulate illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine ...
It’s time to kick our addiction to the war on drugs [25.04.2017] As New Jersey Governor Chris Christie takes the lead in crafting the Trump administration’s response to the opioid crisis, he and his colleagues need ...
Legalize heroin for 'less overdose deaths,’ forensic psychologist tells Vancouver conference [25.04.2017] A forensic psychologist working with the Canadian prison system is calling for “radically different” approaches to B.C.’s overdose crisis, including ...
Ottawa doctor pioneers use of cannabis to help opioid addicts [16.04.2017] The patients at Dr. Mark Ujjainwalla’s methadone clinic are trying to beat their addiction to heroin, narcotic painkillers and other opioid drugs, bu ...
Trump misses the mark with opioid crisis plan, health advocates say [30.03.2017] The White House plan to address the opioid crisis runs counter to the administration’s health and justice policies, said politicians and advocates. T ...
Why SA should follow Portugal and decriminalise drug use [17.03.2017] The war on drugs in South Africa, as in the US, has in no way reduced the supply or the demand of drugs. And without a doubt it’s led to an increase ...
Awash in overdoses, Seattle creates safe sites for addicts to inject illegal drugs [27.01.2017] Officials in Seattle approved the nation’s first “safe-injection” sites for users of heroin and other illegal drugs, calling the move a drastic but n ...
Injecting drugs, under a watchful eye [18.01.2017] It has been nearly 30 years since the first needle exchange program opened in the United States. America has another epidemic now: overdose deaths fr ...
Ottawa moves to facilitate more injection sites as death toll climbs [09.12.2016] Ottawa will introduce a bill that is expected to reduce barriers to opening and operating supervised drug-con­sumption sites in Canada. The move come ...
Drug deaths now 'a public health emergency' [21.10.2016] “The lessons of a failing national policy need to be learnt,” is the conclusion experts drew about the surge in drug deaths. Deaths from heroin more ...

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