Drug Free Australia - Promoting illicit drug prevention initiatives Nationally

Who we are:

Drug Free Australia is a peak body, representing organizations and individuals who value the health and wellbeing of our nation. It plays a key role as a community voice, staying in touch with every day Australians - families and young people - via newsletters, community forums and the media, to ensure a clear message of healthy, drug free lifestyles is assured for generations to come. The articles posted on the Drug Free Australian web site are generally copyrighted by the source publications. They are reproduced here for educational and informative purposes under the Fair Use Doctrine (17 U.S.C., section 107). The articles and information included here are not for sale or resale.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

Drug Free Australia’s position Statement

A balanced, humane drug policy where law enforcement, combined with well-resourced education and public health practice, together with international cooperation, will help us reap the benefits of effective prevention and demand reduction initiatives.

Appeasement to the seductive chorus of calls for decriminalisation will only lead to greater uptake of illicit drug use. Those who offer this panacea of legalisation coupled with regulation have yet to demonstrate any practical means of regulation and should be held to account.

View Position Statement Here

Drug Prevention Education Programs for schools (and parents) supported by Drug Free Australia

DFA wants to promote resources, programs and real life stories to help keep more kids safe

Towards
healthier schools’ Project

If you want to introduce a program into a school, or to get information about the harms of alcohol and drugs,
Drug Free Australia has resources to help.

Drug Free Sschools / Schools Project Update Phase 2 Feb 2019 Towards healthier schools’ Project

DFA challenged Harm Reduction Australia regarding pill testing

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The existing evidence base indicates no deaths in Australia from impurities in ecstasy pills
The existing evidence base indicates purity is not an issue, otherwise a batch of high purity tablets would hospitalise or kill most users who bought that batch, which is not happening in Australia
The existing evidence from medical literature indicates that overdose from MDMA is rare, and that Coroners’ reports listing overdose are more likely the result of combined MDMA/polydrug use toxicity rather than overdose.
The existing evidence base roundly shows that MDMA itself is responsible for almost every ecstasy pill death within Australia and deaths are from normal recreational doses of MDMA, which unfortunately pill testing wrongly declares as safe
The existing evidence base shows that MDMA used with other legal and illegal drugs is responsible for most of those deaths, but pill testing fails to test for polydrug use
The existing evidence base shows that many die of an individual allergic-like reaction to MDMA, and pill testing cannot test for that
The existing evidence base has very few deaths from other drugs cut with MDMA in an ecstasy pill
The existing evidence base indicates that pill testing equipment at festivals is not capable of detecting the other drugs mixed with MDMA that killed the three Melbourne users in January 2017, and indeed is not capable of detecting most of the fast-evolving other substances that could potentially be used in ecstasy pills in the future
The existing evidence base indicates that a scraping from a pill cannot guarantee that it is representative of what is in the pill

All of the above make pill testing dangerous because it may lull prospective users into a false sense of security if their pill is found to be normal. If the user has used drugs before there is no guarantee a normal MDMA pill will not cause that user’s death.

Gary Christian
SECRETARY
Drug Free Australia

Could medical cannabis be the new THALIDOMIDE? Fears of a crisis as doctors consider doling marijuana-based medicines out to pregnant mothers despite evidence the drug can damage foetuses

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) recently published an article arguing that the widespread use of medical cannabis could eventually lead to a public health crisis bearing comparison with the thalidomide disaster.

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