Such an exciting and important new award … to recognise and celebrate excellence in #DrugPolicy scholarship… get your nominations in now 👇

Thoughtful & useful reflections from Tristan Duncan on the need to challenge the conditions that perpetuate harm: "overdose deaths are preventable, they are driven foremost by a failed status quo, and they will not end without significant drug policy reform."!

This ~8000 person Swedish study of forced treatment confirms quantitatively what I've been seeing for years with respect to coercion of people with substance-use disorders. For example, that is why/how Carter died young in "Righteous Dopefiend".

Even so, it’s rare to hear these voices - usually through NGOs. Academics and policy makers often forget to ask or consider what it is that cigarette smokers, the people they are supposedly protecting, want and need.@FCAforTC National Tobacco Control Advocacy Service ASH New Zealand Health Coalition Aotearoa Ayesha Verrall

Young people aged 21 and under have until 19 October to submit a 90-second speech to @RaiseOurVoiceAu. Speeches should answer 'What should Australia's new Parliament accomplish?' You can submit your speech through the link in our bio.

Multiple overdoses at NSW festivals this weekend. If you’re not delivering on recommendations suggested by experts- from both Coronial, AND Special inquiries, (commissioned by your own government)- you are now actively part of the problem. #pilltesting nybreaking.com/music-festival…

Farewell to Bruno Latour, whose scholarship has profoundly influenced Cultural Studies research around the world. Go gently. #BrunoLatour #AcademicTwitter #Vale theguardian.com/world/2022/oct…

Tina McPhee delivering a powerful keynote UNSW Law & Justice, describing the collateral consequences of conviction, civil death, the “perfect legality” of discrimination against returning people & the need for non-performative engagement with people with lived experience.

For drug policy to be a united movement, we must reach out to all of the causes and struggles that are impacted by their criminalisation & stigma. There cannot be drug policy reform without sex work support, anti-racism, decolonialism, migrant support, & many, many more!

Excellent news for the ACT. Thank you to all the peers, advocates, service providers, and other allies for all your hard work so far and all that is to come.

New paper in Drug&AlcoholReview with Theresa Caruana & Lisa Maher, involving qualitative description of a group of people who inject drugs in an affluent area of Sydney, the Northern Beaches

With no street-based drug market, participants mostly acquired drugs from friends and acquaintances from high school & middle-class drug scene. Though this was not the most reliable market, so regular visits to inner-city & western suburbs of Syd were common as well

Absence of street drug market meant that drug transactions were assimilated into non-threatening middle-class suburban settings where police are less interventionist. This includes cafés, parking lots, out front of a block of townhouses or the driveway of suburban family home

While participants experienced police surveillance when visiting inner-city & western suburbs, had limited contact with police when on the Beaches. Targeted policing limited to a single suburb, which ‘stood out’ because it was the poorest part of an otherwise affluent area

Australia becomes the first country in the world to recognise MDMA as a medicine. Who would have thought! tga.gov.au/news/media-rel…

Really looking forward to the next week of #HR23 with Students for Sensible Drug Policy Australia. Keen to workshop with peers, service providers, researchers, policymakers, and our other allies in our fight for equitable drug policy and respect for drugs and people who use them. #StrengthInSolidarity

It’s easier to find a dealer than an opioid substitution therapy prescriber in Victoria: — Sione Crawford of Harm Reduction Vic at #HR23, echoing the findings of the recent evaluation of the Nth Richmond #MSIR chaired by John Ryan

This just happened!! In an Australia first three Parliaments across the country will have the same bill read in for debate at the same time! Stay tuned to find out more about what the bill means and why it is so important for cannabis law reform. #springst #vicpol #freetheplant

SSDP Australia are looking for up to 3 new Board Directors for a 2y term. Join our growing national org & the movement for drug law reforms. Applications close 3 July. bitly.ws/JVIG