Intravenous drug users in Canberra will be the first in Australia to be issued with take-home packs of the ''overdose reversal'' drug naloxone.

ACT Chief Minister and Health Minister Katy Gallagher announced yesterday that the territory would conduct a two-year trial of the drug, also known as narcan, among the capital's addicts.

In 2009, the latest year when figures are available, ACT Ambulance responded to more than 110 heroin overdose emergencies and drug and alcohol workers say that an Australian dies every day from the effects of the narcotic.

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GOVERNMENT efforts to ban synthetic cannabis drugs such as Kronic have failed.

The drugs were openly on sale in Newcastle sex shops yesterday almost six months after the O'Farrell and Gillard governments moved against them.

Both governments relied on adding a series of "cannabinoid" chemicals to outlawed drug registers to stop the sales in July.

But the state government has acknowledged that manufacturers are tweaking their products to get around the ingredient-specific bans.

On top of this, the federal laws apply only to possession, use and storage of the banned ingredients.

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FIGURES that show sniffer dogs are wrong four out of five times dampened the launch of the NSW Police Force's new dog squad program this week.

On Wednesday, the NSW Police Minister Michael Gallacher officially launched the Police Force's Dog Unit Regionalisation Program, which will see seven commands across NSW get a boost in the form of a dog squad.

Richmond Local Area Command (LAC) welcomed a general-purpose german shepherd, a drug detection labrador and a police dog handler last month.

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It isn't every day that you meet a former stockbroker turned hippie. I'm sitting with Nimbin's unofficial mayor, Michael Balderstone, at the Nimbin HEMP Embassy, watching locals and tourists wandering past colourful painted shopfronts. The little village of Nimbin has a unique laid-back lifestyle and it's going on around us. People are drinking coffee, chatting with others as they pass by, some are shopping for organic vegetable seedlings and hemp-based soaps.

For the past 20 years, Michael has been the public face of the North Coast's Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) movement. As the president of the Nimbin HEMP Embassy and the founder of the Nimbin Museum, Michael is a self-proclaimed hippie and advocate for all things hemp; but his life wasn't always about living the alternative lifestyle and promoting decriminalisation. Before finding his way to the North Coast 26 years ago, Michael spent his school days at a private boarding school in Victoria before heading off to find his fame and fortune as a high flyer on the stockmarket.

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THE expulsion of three Year 8 boys from one of Australia's most prestigious schools, Cranbrook, for allegedly selling marijuana to classmates should ring warning bells.

Year 8 students, after all, are only 13 or 14 years old, and cannabis use is on the increase for the first time in a decade.

Instead, we have some counsellors and other people in authority shrugging their shoulders, saying boys will be boys and it's normal to experiment.

Well it's not OK and it's about time grown-ups acted like grown-ups instead of overgrown teenagers with short-term memory problems.

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POTENTIALLY more addictive and harmful drugs are filling the gap as ecstasy use declines in the ACT, with scientists yet to understand the long-term effects of more than 40 new psychoactive substances.

The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre warns synthetic stimulants and psychedelic drugs could be more dangerous than ecstasy.

Ecstasy use in the ACT has declined rapidly due to a number of reasons such as successful police crackdowns and the fact that young adults who used the drug at its peak have grown older.

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The appalling behaviour of the so-called Bali Boy, the celebrity drug user and massage parlour habitue from the NSW Central Coast attracted the attention of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Therese Rein, the wife of former prime minister, now Foreign Minister and political gadfly, Kevin Rudd.

After two months spent in somewhat stressful conditions in Bali, during which he was comforted by Gillard on the telephone and was provided with "enormous support" by Ms Rein, he is home with his parents.

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Australia's Foreign Minister Said Friday That He Will Do Everything Possible to Secure the Return of a 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested For Alleged Marijuana Possession While on a Family Vacation in Indonesia.

The boy, who cannot be named as a child criminal suspect under Indonesian law, has been held at Denpasar police headquarters on the tourist island of Bali since he was arrested Tuesday after allegedly buying a small quantity of marijuana from a man on Kuta Beach.

His lawyer, Muhammad Rifan, said the boy faces a maximum sentence of six years if convicted of possessing a quarter of an ounce (7 grams) of marijuana, which under Indonesian law is treated the same as heroin or cocaine.

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AFTER years of being fobbed off by government departments and getting frustrated by political forces out of his control, medical cannabis manufacturer Tony Bower is taking his case and his cause to the steps of parliament house in Sydney, and possibly to the Supreme Court.

Mr Bower has been making and supplying a cannabis tincture for around 300 chronic pain sufferers for several years. All of his patients must supply a letter from their doctor confirming their condition and he asks them to keep a record of the dosage they are taking, the effects it is having, and how it reacts with other medications.

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SMOKING cannabis daily sets users up for a lifetime of multiple drug use, a major study has found.

Weekly cannabis users are two to three times more likely to take up other drugs than occasional users. And not just illegal substances such as amphetamines, ecstasy and cocaine. Daily cannabis smokers proved six times more likely than occasional users to start smoking cigarettes, demonstrating what Dr Wendy Swift from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre calls "the reverse gateway".

"People say drug use always starts with tobacco, but in this study, some start with cannabis, and that moves them on to tobacco. And we all know the health cost of tobacco use."

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Tough new penalties for possessing and growing cannabis or selling smoking implements come into force in Western Australia on August 1.

Police Minister Rob Johnson announced on Sunday that the "relaxed, soft drug laws" introduced by the previous Labor government would be repealed and replaced by a stricter regime.

"What it will mean is that those people caught with cannabis will not simply get a slap on the wrist," he told reporters.

Advertisement: Story continues below But the opposition says the new penalties are just "smoke and mirrors" to make out the government is tough on drugs when it's facing pressure over a growth in clandestine drug labs in the suburbs.

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Conservatives Are Starting to Adopt a More Liberal Stance on The Narcotics Campaign.

IN 2011, the war to end the war on drugs is now being led by conservative voices, not radical ones. In March, three federal Liberal backbenchers - Mal Washer, Judi Moylan, and the Victorian Russell Broadbent - came out against the criminal status of drug use, going so far as to argue that heroin and cocaine should be legalised. Dr Washer described the war on drugs as a "crime against humanity".

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THE new head of the Australian Lawyers Alliance says the country's policy on illicit drugs has failed and Australia should consider decriminalisation, even for drugs such as heroin and crystal methamphetamine.

Greg Barns, a criminal barrister and former chairman of the Australian Republic Movement, said Australian Crime Commission figures released this week showed "an abject failure of prohibition".

Mr Barns took over today as national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, which promotes individual rights in the criminal justice system. Advertisement: Story continues below

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POLICE in Australia made more drug-related arrests and detected more clandestine amphetamine laboratories in the last financial year than at any other time in the past decade.

But the quantity of drugs seized was 41 per cent lower than in the previous year - leaving open the possibility that overall supply and demand remain largely unaffected by law enforcement.

Australian Crime Commission statistics, to be released today, show drug-related arrests across Australia in 2009-10 reached a decade-high of 85,252. Advertisement: Story continues below

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The Global War on Drugs Has Failed, Says the High Level Global Commission on Drug Policy

The new report begins by baldly stating: "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government's war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed."

The report's recommendations are equally blunt: "End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others. Challenge rather than reinforce common misconceptions about drug markets, drug use and drug dependence.

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Governments acting on behalf of society have deemed the production, distribution and consumption of (some!) drugs to be unacceptable and the subject of criminal law. Add to this strong policing and public campaigns to discourage use and we have the "War on Drugs".

Although it is clear that this war has not abolished the drug industry, the drug warriors say it is a justifiable use of public authority and resources because it sends a clear message about the dangers of drug use and acts as a disincentive for involvement in the different parts of the industry. In other words it constrains what might otherwise be an epidemic of drug use and abuse.

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NORTH Coast students as young as 12 are using drugs and schools are being locked down because of violent schoolyard brawls.

Disturbingly, more students were found carrying drugs on the North Coast than anywhere else in the state in Term Three last year.

This insight into our schools comes from incident reports provided to The Northern Star by the Department of Education following a Freedom of Information request.

Even more disturbing is that school communities are unaware of the widespread problems because of privacy concerns.

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It's been an interesting month in the world of medically supervised injecting facilities. In Melbourne last week Yarra City Council voted to urge the Victorian state government to consider the opening of one in the inner city suburb of Richmond. In Sydney, the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre had its 10th birthday.

And in Canada, where a "sister" service operates in Vancouver, the Supreme Court began deliberating on whether it is the federal government or the provinces that has the right to run the facility.

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Prisoners Are Testing Positive for Drugs at Alarming Rates As Authorities Uncover Stashes of Cocaine, Heroin, Dozens of Illegal Pills and Prescription Medication in Their Cells.

In just two months, prisoners at three Victorian jails racked up 130 positive drug tests - almost one for every 14 inmates.

Visitors to the Port Phillip, Dame Phyllis Frost and Fulham prisons were caught trying to smuggle in drugs 15 times in December and January.

Weapons - including 24 knives - were also uncovered in contraband seized in the past two months, Corrections Minister Andrew McIntosh revealed after questions on notice by the State Opposition.

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THE perceived misuse of crime statistics in Victoria has a long history.

Right now, the ombudsman is investigating claims that police command bowed to political pressure and released selective crime statistics weeks before last November's state election.

News in today's Herald Sun that the use of sniffer dogs at public events more than halved between 2009 and 2010 appears to represent an odd set of priorities for a police force often accused of lacking enough public presence.

And the resulting drop in drug-related crimes reveals the importance of police endeavours in drug matters. If detection methods are reduced, it seems plain that resulting crime numbers will drop, even if the levels of crime being committed remain the same.

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