Victorians would be free to smoke and grow marijuana if a push by the Sex Party to legalise the drug is successful. On Wednesday, Sex Party MP Fiona Patten will introduce a motion to the upper house calling on the government to immediately remove criminal sanctions for the possession, use and cultivation of marijuana for personal use by people 18 and older. The motion will also urge the government to allow the drug to be grown by farmers, which would create an additional revenue source through taxation. [continues 268 words]
Victoria's medicinal cannabis is a step closer to being dispensed to children with severe epilepsy, Premier Daniel Andrews has declared after visiting the state's clandestine marijuana crop. Less than an hour after pictures were released of Mr Andrews inspecting the crop, the Premier announced the appointment of an independent medical committee to work out which patient cohort will be next to access medicinal cannabis. Victoria's medicinal cannabis is on track to be dispensed to the first group, children with severe epilepsy, next year, Mr Andrews says. [continues 201 words]
The Debate on Medicinal Cannabis Needs the Major Parties to Grow Up. I think I am the only member of parliament in Australia to acknowledge my recreational use of cannabis. In fact, I have enjoyed the many blessings that cannabis can bestow for a lot of my adult life and have not lost my mind or become a serial killer. Indeed, I became a politician and some have even said I would not have been elected without it! Jokes aside, I'm declaring my usage or non-usage of cannabis, just so everyone knows where I'm coming from. This debate would be far more informative if every journalist, every politician and every commentator on the subject of cannabis law reform did the same, instead of hiding their drug use, drug abuse or their nonuse in the closet. [continues 620 words]
What if LSD could treat PTSD, or magic mushrooms could help you quit smoking? Overseas research is advanced, but trials of psychedelic drugs can't get approval in Australia. Are we missing out on cures? Konrad Marshall reports. When Martin Williams' research plan was first rejected by an ethics committee in 2012, he understood why. The medicinal chemistry researcher could see some valid sticking points. For one, the psychiatrist attached to his detailed protocol didn't quite have the requisite clinical trials experience. [continues 2533 words]
Addiction to painkillers is putting many Americans on a road that leads to heroin and an early grave, writes Andrew Purcell. The United States is in the grip of an unprecedented epidemic. In 2014, more than 47,000 people were killed by an overdose more than were killed by guns, or died in traffic accidents. " This is the worst drug addiction epidemic in United States history," says Andrew Kolodny, the chief medical officer of Phoenix House in New York. Phoenix House was founded in 1967 by six heroin addicts who resolved to kick the habit together and has grown to become the nation's leading provider of drug- abuse treatment. [continues 1187 words]
Secret government-run drug labs have started growing medicinal cannabis in Victoria to provide new treatment for nearly 500 children. And those that cannot afford newly legal medicinal cannabis will be given nearly $ 12 million in taxpayer-funded assistance to buy the drug, Premier Daniel Andrews says. Last week the government passed laws for medicinal cannabis but people seeking the treatment it will require a prescription - will have to wait until next year when the government-controlled product becomes available. The government warned that people getting treatments from other sources was illegal and would be a matter for the police. [continues 335 words]
World leaders have an opportunity to act on the global drug problem that causes untold human suffering and costs billions a year. The discussions will have an immediate flow-on effect to changes in drug policy being contemplated in Australia and around the world. In 1998, a special session of the United Nations General Assembly agreed to set a 10-year deadline to make the world "drug free". After an embarrassing failure to achieve this goal, the deadline was extended a further 10 years, setting the world up for another inevitable failure in 2019. [continues 781 words]
The Money Governments Pour into Stopping the Flow of Drugs Could Be Better Spent on Education, Treatment and Better Healthcare. You may have read recently that the late John Ehrlichman, a senior policy adviser to disgraced United States president Richard Nixon, admitted that the administration's 1971 declaration of a "war on drugs" was an invention, a lie. Its purpose was a political diversion; to create the perception of fear and uncertainty among the US population. It was directed at young blacks and leftist "activists" who became the scapegoats and collateral damage of the so-called "war". Know thy enemy. [continues 759 words]
This week federal parliamentarians will discuss with world experts ways to minimise harm caused by illicit drugs. At a national drug summit, legislators will also be reminded of the sobering reality that Australians consume illegal drugs at concerning levels. A 2014 United Nations report found, for example, Australians lead the world in ecstasy use. The so-called war on drugs has failed, here and in every nation that embraced it. Former Victorian police commissioner and head of the National Ice Taskforce Ken Lay last year encapsulated the views of many informed people when he said "we can't arrest our way out of this". Former UN chief Kofi Annan made the same case in these pages only last Sunday. [continues 440 words]
As the Status of Drug Use in Victoria Is Debated, Lessons Can Be Learnt From the US. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In January 1964, the Beatles first broke onto the US Billboard chart. In January, the US surgeon general announced that scientists had found conclusive evidence linking smoking to cancer and thus launched a highly successful 50-year public-health fight against tobacco. In August, the North Vietnamese fired on a US naval ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, which led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the public phase of the Vietnam War. Alongside an accelerating deployment of conventional troops would come their widespread use of marijuana and heroin. [continues 822 words]
Where is the "war" against drugs when we all know the penalties are so ineffective ("Death, 60 arrests at Stereosonic", 6/12)? If there were significant penalties, would people be arriving at such events in large numbers with illegal drugs? If they don't care about the law or health, then punish them with something they do understand. Money and possessions are treasured above most other things in our society, so why not place a nominal fine of, say, $10,000 on those found carrying drugs and higher for those under the influence? Confiscate cars, phones, computers and cash up to that value and hold it in trust for one month, six months, a year or indefinitely, subject to drug test results. Philip Eagles, Mill Park [end]
Prime Minister Should Back Bill Legalising Medical Marijuana to Ensure It Passes, the Greens Say. Richard Di Natale is forging ahead with his bid to legalise medical marijuana and warns the Turnbull government would be foolish to stand in the way. The Greens leader will ask the Senate to vote on his bill co-sponsored by Liberal, Labor and crossbench senators next month and he's calling on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to get on board to ensure its success. Senator Di Natale will personally press Mr Turnbull for his support when the pair meet in Canberra this week. [continues 359 words]
Most wars end. One of the longest in history, the Hundred Years War, finally ended in 1453. However, a war that has been fought internationally for nearly as long, the "war on drugs", continues almost unabated, causing havoc and misery for many people in our community. Winston Churchill once said: "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." Rarely do we look closely at the effectiveness of drug prohibition and the war on drugs. A close analysis, however, shows that globally over the past four decades more than a $US 1 trillion has been spent on a strategy that has led to the incarceration of millions worldwide solely based on their drug choice, thousands have been put to death as a "deterrent" (including two Australians in Indonesia this year), families have been destroyed because of overdoses and HIV, young lives ruined because of a criminal record, law enforcement and public officials have been corrupted, and criminal gangs have reaped the rewards of a policy that has failed to curb demand. Yet illicit drugs are cheaper, and more available and accessible than ever before. [continues 682 words]
Marc Lewis Argues That Addiction Is the Result of ' Deep Learning', Probably Triggered by Stress or Alienation. It Can Duly Be Unlearned... Via Better Habits For a long time, Marc Lewis felt a body blow of shame whenever he remembered that night. " We thought you were dead," accused one of his mates, leaning over him. Lewis was slumped half-naked in a bathtub. " We were just talking about what to do with the body." Lewis was at only the beginning of his odyssey into opiates. After this overdose, he dropped out of university and didn't pick up his studies for another nine years. At the next attempt, he was excelling at clinical psychology when he made front page news. He'd been busted raiding a pharmacy for goodies, hopefully Demerol or Methedrine. That was careless; he'd been successfully pulling off three or four break- ins a week. [continues 1417 words]
More people are buying recreational drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine online, partly because it is much cheaper than buying them on the street, where the price of drugs in Australia is more than double the global average. An international survey on drug habits has detected a rapid increase over the past six years in the number of people who buy their drugs online using sites such as Silk Road, whose founder was jailed for life last month. The Global Drug Survey 2015, which was conducted in partnership with global media organisations including Fairfax Media, polled 102,000 people from 50 countries, including 4030 from Australia, about their patterns of drug use. [continues 495 words]
Dark web demand growing Anyone following the Silk Road story could be forgiven for thinking that the online black market's shutdown in October 2013 and the sentencing of its owner to life in prison without parole last week meant the end of online drug sales. Nothing is further from the truth. The results of the latest Global Drug Survey show the number of illicit drug users turning to the dark web the hidden internet accessible with easily-obtained free software is growing. [continues 468 words]
Michael Coulter The war on drugs has filled our jails, enriched the worst among us, wasted police resources and blotted up millions of dollars that could have been far better spent. 'Are we in the grip of an ice epidemic? No. Are all ice users violent monsters? Certainly not.' 'Are we in the grip of an ice epidemic? No. Are all ice users violent monsters? Certainly not.' It would be nice to say that the war on drugs had achieved nothing. The truth is far worse. [continues 758 words]
In a Rare Moment of Detente, Democrats and Republicans Have Both Admitted That America's War on Drugs and the Subsequent Tough-On-Crime Policies Have Failed. How Did We Get Here? Politicians from across the divided political spectrum now agree tough policies on drugs and mass incarceration have failed, blighting inner-city communities. On the last Tuesday of April they buried Freddie Gray in a white coffin with gold trim at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Baltimore. Gray was 25 when he died, his neck broken and his voice box crushed, in police custody after he had been arrested for making eye contact with a police officer. [continues 1918 words]
Food ministers have rejected advice from Australia's food standards agency that hemp be allowed to be used in food. Hemp is a species of cannabis, but unlike marijuana contains no or very low levels of the mind- altering chemical tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC). It is used in Australia in clothing and building products, but cannot be used in food. In 2012, Food Standards Australia New Zealand approved an application to include hemp in food. Food ministers asked the agency to review its decision, which the agency reaffirmed, noting that foods derived from hemp seeds did not present any safety concerns. [continues 120 words]
NSW has been hit by an ice-berg. Rates of ice use and detection are crashing through the roof and have now reached pandemic proportions. Experts have compared the crisis to the crack cocaine scourge that hit the United States in the 1980s. It's a problem that's careering out of control, and the Liberal State Government doesn't have a clue what to do about it. Trust me, I know -- because I've seen this crisis first-hand. As a criminal lawyer (who mostly deals with legal aid clients) much of my work involves defending people who are struggling with drug addiction and/or mental health issues. [continues 710 words]
Drug Prohibition Isn't Working, and the New State Government Could Do Worse Than Look to Portugal for Some Fresh Ideas. The dramatic rise in Victoria's drug trade over the past five years has occurred because the government has pursued failed prohibition policies. According to figures published in The Age on Monday, demand for "illegal narcotics such as ice is growing at breakneck speed. Use and possession offences for all drugs have skyrocketed 68 per cent in the five-year period, while cultivation, trafficking and manufacturing offences have jumped 25 per cent. [continues 772 words]
Illicit drugs and alcohol are being smuggled into mental health wards run by the state's busiest public hospitals, undermining patient care and putting psychiatric staff at risk of violence. Parents have reported that their children have bought and used illegal drugs while in hospital being treated for drug-induced psychosis, and health authorities say patients are returning to wards affected by drugs after going on temporary approved leave. The families of mentally ill patients say the system is failing them and have raised concerns about a lack of drug rehabilitation services, forcing people with mental health and substance abuse problems into psychiatric wards. [continues 747 words]
Coalition Reform Will Do Little, Say Experts A Victorian government plan to make clinical trials of medicinal marijuana easier to conduct will do little to expand access to the drug, an expert on drug law reform says. In response to growing calls for cannabis to be legalised for people with certain illnesses, including children with intractable epilepsy, Victorian Health Minister David Davis said on Thursday that he would amend the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act to make it easier for doctors to conduct clinical trials of medicinal cannabis. [continues 393 words]
Medical cannabis will be legalised in Victoria if Labor seizes power at November's state election. Under the proposal, Victorians with terminal illnesses or life threatening conditions such as cancer, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis would be able to access medicinal marijuana without breaking the law. Opposition leader Daniel Andrews said on Sunday that Labor would overhaul "outdated" legislation that forced parents to flout laws in order to save their children's lives. " We're talking about a medication to make people better, to improve quality of life, to provide dignity and pain relief, nothing more, nothing less," Mr Andrews said. [continues 373 words]
A REPORT has recommended the decriminalisation of cannabis and ecstasy in some circumstances, and the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association agrees a new approach is needed. The report, by a group of prominent Australians including University of Melbourne's former dean of medicine David Penington, recommends that cannabis and ecstasy be decriminalised for people aged 16 and older who are willing to be recorded on a national confidential users' register. Users would be able to buy drugs from an approved supplier, most likely a chemist. [continues 439 words]
Forensic workers remove one of the decapitated bodies from a morgue in Guadalajara, Mexico. Police found the dismembered bodies of 15 people dumped near Mexico's second city earlier this month. As the killings continue, Mexico and Latin America are pressing the US for change. THE bodies were found just north of Monterrey near the town of Cadereyta Jimenez, some in garbage bags, some strewn on the roadside. They were mostly men, mostly missing their heads, hands and feet. There were 49 in all, which was a lot even for Mexico, so the grim discovery a fortnight ago made news, even in a country where mass murder is so common as to be banal. Earlier in the month, 15 bodies were found on the road to Chapasa and another 23 were discovered in Nuevo Laredo. Of those, nine were hanging from a highway overpass and 14 were decapitated. [continues 1088 words]
IT WAS the metaphor from hell that started this mess. We can blame US president Richard Nixon, who in 1971 famously declared War On Drugs, and like Vietnam, it has proved to be unwinnable. Perhaps it should have been compared to disease, where we don't look for total victory but rather see every person saved as a win. If addictions were an Olympic event, Australia would medal every time. From cocaine in the 1920s, over-the-counter drugs in the 1950s, heroin in the '80s and the present designer pill push, we have been near first in the queue. [continues 712 words]
FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has joined a group of prominent Australians, including former federal police chief Mick Palmer, in a campaign to overturn the "war on drugs" policies promoted by former prime minister John Howard. The campaign will be launched today with a report declaring: "The war on drugs has failed ... The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children and we are letting it happen." The campaign, to be launched by former NSW director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, QC, has attracted high-profile backers including former WA premier Geoff Gallop, former Defence Department chief Paul Barratt, former federal Liberal health ministers Michael Wooldridge and Peter Baume, and drug addiction expert Alex Wodak. [continues 470 words]
CARL Williams, it must be said, never pretended to be an A-grade student. Variously described during his shortened professional life as an unemployed supermarket shelf-stacker, property developer and professional punter, he was, in reality, turning over $100,000 a month by grinding out a variety of illicit pills of questionable quality. Tony Mokbel was never inclined to enrol in night school to complete an MBA, yet was the stunningly successful CEO of his corporation, dubbed The Company. Howard Marks, the charming Oxford University graduate, ran The Enterprise - a worldwide cannabis business involving 113 known associates working in 14 countries. Over 20 years he used sea-going tugs, freighters and US Navy containers to transport massive quantities of cannabis to his shifting market. [continues 1337 words]
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." [continues 308 words]
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 [continues 136 words]
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 [continues 486 words]
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. [continues 779 words]
Huge Profits Ensure That New Traffickers Are Always Ready to Fill Any Gaps. THE report by The Age and Four Corners on a major drugs bust (code-named Operation Hoffman) by state police forces under the direction of the Australian Crime Commission was a cracking story. A fascinating cast of goodies and baddies was set against the background of a global drugs distribution chain, which was broken by following the money trail. The conclusion was that even with regular disruptions to the supply chain and the operators being given heavy jail sentences, the extremely high profits are more than enough to ensure that new drug rings will step into the breach. [continues 736 words]
It's not Suzanne's fault that she became addicted to heroin at 16. For a while it numbed the emotional pain of the abuse she suffered as a ward of the state. Four years later, she uses heroin three times a day just to feel normal. She never knows how strong it will be and has overdosed six times in the past year. Without the first aid of ambulance officers, Suzanne would be dead - like four of her friends who died from overdoses in the past year. [continues 803 words]
A BIG increase in drug overdoses among inmates and a sex scandal involving prison officials have prompted claims that Victoria's largest women's jail is in disarray. In the past six months, at least seven - and possibly 11 - prisoners have had one or more serious drug overdoses at the maximum security Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Melbourne's west. Department sources have told The Age the drug problem at the prison is the worst it has been in a decade, with heroin and ice readily available. [continues 563 words]
PREMIER John Brumby has promised an investigation of claims of increased drug use at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre amid concern about the amount of contraband smuggled into Victoria's largest women's jail. Mr Brumby said yesterday's report in The Age of a recent rise in drug overdoses among inmates and a sex scandal involving prison officials was "a matter of major concern" to Corrections Minister Bob Cameron who, the Premier said, had requested a "full and detailed report" into the incidents. [continues 331 words]
TAXI drivers, tradesmen and body builders are among the growing number of people using St Kilda's 24-hour needle and syringe exchange program - - the only service that operates all night, every night in Victoria. The manager of health services for the Salvation Army's Crisis Service, Sue White, said that since the Grey Street program started operating round the clock in late 2007, it had helped an extra 1000 people get clean equipment every month. Aside from local sex workers, she said, tradesmen were using the after-hours service alongside truck drivers and a small number of taxi drivers. [continues 212 words]
ALEX Wodak (Comment & Debate, 24/9) is correct. If our first concern is to save lives, then prescribing heroin to people who are unable to cease their problematic use of it makes medical and humane sense. Good medicine, good public policy and the generally accepted view that caring for our fellow human beings is desirable means we must listen to the science. As Wodak says, the research findings are strong. Prescribed heroin as a medical intervention will reduce crime, public health risks and drug-related harm, help stabilise difficult lifestyles and save lives. Bill Stronach, Doncaster [end]
AUSTRALIAN doctors should be allowed to prescribe heroin to long-term addicts to prevent fatal overdoses, crime and the spread of blood-borne viruses, leading addiction specialists say. Dr Alex Wodak, director of the alcohol and drug service at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, called for Canberra to investigate whether long-term addicts who fail rehabilitation programs should be given a last-resort option of receiving the drug on prescription. "This group may be 5 per cent of all heroin users, but they have the biggest habit, and they account for a disproportionate amount of the crime," he said. [continues 215 words]
In October 1987, while travelling overseas to learn about HIV and injecting drug use, I spent an evening in a "shooting gallery" in Brooklyn, New York City. I watched for hours as four Hispanic men and women injected "speedballs" of heroin mixed with cocaine. It was a life-changing experience. We were in the basement of a dilapidated, abandoned tenement building. There was no electricity. Cars parked in the street were propped up on bricks with smashed windscreens. This was urban squalor unimaginable in Australia. [continues 828 words]
A VICTORIAN County Court judge has said drug addicts who abuse their children should lose care of them. After hearing a plea of guilty from a father who banged his two-year-old son's head against a wooden paling, Judge Frances Hogan yesterday said such "grossly irresponsible" people would be punished. "A message has to go out to the community that people who are so grossly irresponsible that they use drugs in this fashion, that they should not be in charge of children -- and if they do and they injure them, they will meet condign punishment," Judge Hogan said. [continues 314 words]
Police seeking to stem the flow of heroin into Australia say it is just a matter of time before another drug courier is executed overseas. John Silvester reports. IN AN imported suit and designer sunglasses, the Vietnamese man is at once young and flashy and the epitome of self-styled personal success. He has that cool confidence suggestive of a young executive on the make -- or a luxury car dealer before the global financial crisis rearranged the world. But the young man doesn't work for a company -- at least not one found on any Corporate Affairs register. He is a recruiter -- in more conventional corporate terms a "headhunter" -- who works in Melbourne's western suburbs with a tempting pitch. His job is persuading the gullible that he can offer them the chance of a lifetime that includes money, travel and adventure. He tells his marks what they want to hear -- that his system is foolproof. He will buy them a return ticket to Vietnam and they can visit friends and relatives while being paid handsomely for a working holiday. [continues 1487 words]
POLICE have identified more than 100 Melbourne-based drug couriers smuggling heroin from Vietnam for seven major crime syndicates. Drug Taskforce head Detective Inspector Doug Fryer yesterday issued a public warning to the drug suspects that they face certain arrest -- and possibly the death penalty -- if they continue. "We are putting these people on notice. We know who you are and you will be checked if you make any further trips," he said. Syndicate recruiting officers specially trained to identify likely candidates are selecting the human mules -- often from Melbourne's western suburbs. The smugglers range from a male aged 22 to a woman in her mid-60s. [continues 481 words]
AUSTRALIA has become one of the biggest markets in the Asian region for amphetamines and ecstasy, and large quantities of illegal drug ingredients are coming in by air cargo, a United Nations report has found. The 2009 UN World Drug Report says pseudoephedrine and ephedrine -- both used in the manufacture of methamphetamine, or ice -- are being allowed to flow in through Australia's porous borders. And while Australia has had some success in cutting heroin use by disrupting supply chains, the report says there are signs that the manufacture of synthetic drugs has gained traction both here and in South-East Asia. [continues 451 words]
FOR a substance that started out as a family-friendly cough suppressant and non-addictive morphine substitute, heroin has certainly gained a fearsome reputation since the late 1890s, when Germany's Bayer Company first marketed it. There are still some elderly retired midwives around who fondly recall heroin (available legally here until the mid-1950s) as a near-perfect sedative for labour pains. From pain-free birth to painful death, heroin has become one of our most reviled and misunderstood substances. [continues 799 words]
WHEN Sean started smoking cannabis as a teenager, it seemed like a harmless thing to do. At first, he and his mates smoked "joints" at parties to relax and have a laugh, but as the years went by, Sean found himself smoking the drug about four times a week. "Of all the drugs around, it was totally acceptable," he said. But when Sean started university a few years ago, things changed. One day, the voice of a female friend started talking to him when she was not around. [continues 280 words]
ILLICIT drug use is as high as ever among baby boomers. Experts fear the numbers will climb higher in the next 20 years as people continue to use the drugs of their youth. One in 11 men and one in 18 women aged over 50 are using illicit drugs because they have more relaxed views of drug-taking than their parents, a report has found. The report, published in the latest issue of the quarterly magazine Of Substance, found that between 2004 and 2007 the use of illicit drugs fell in every age group except 50 to 59. [continues 276 words]
CHILDREN with drug and alcohol addictions will "slip through the net" when the state's only residential rehabilitation program for young teenagers closes this month because of a lack of funds. The state-appointed child safety commissioner has called on the Government to help save the program, in Melbourne's east, after donations dried up amid the global financial crisis and outpouring of aid to bushfire victims. Commissioner Bernie Geary, who advises the Government on the safety and wellbeing of children, said that unless the Government responded to the need of the Tandana Place program for 12 to 20-year-olds, vulnerable young people would "slip through the net". "They are the young people we find in prisons and abject and long-term homelessness," he said. "It has a ripple effect, it affects broader families. The community needs places like Tandana and it's in all our interests that it continues. [continues 474 words]
COCAINE production has surged across Latin America and unleashed a wave of violence, population displacements and corruption, prompting urgent calls to rethink the drug war. More than 750 tonnes of cocaine are shipped annually from the Andes in a multibillion-dollar industry that has forced peasants off their land, triggered gang wars and perverted state institutions. Dozens of interviews with law enforcement officials, coca farmers, refugees and policymakers have yielded a bleak picture of the "war" on the eve of a crucial United Nations drug summit. [continues 230 words]
