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The Australian Drug Policy Timeline

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The Australian Drug Policy Timeline The Australian (illicit) drug policy timeline: 1985-2019 The Australian (illicit) drug policy timeline provides a list of key events, policy and legislative changes that have occurred in Australia between 1985 and 31 December 2019. Events are listed by jurisdiction, at the federal and state/ territory level. The first table includes events at the federal level. Events in the state and territories are split into two parts. The second table includes events from the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. Events from South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia are listed in the third table. The timeline will continue to be updated bi-annually. Please email through comments or suggested inclusions. Suggested citation: Hughes, Caitlin. (2020). The Australian (illicit) drug policy timeline: 1985-2019, Drug Policy Modelling Program, UNSW and Centre for Crime Policy and Research, Flinders University. Last updated 15 January 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/sprc/research/drug-policy-modelling-program/drug-policy-timeline Year Federal 2019 Large increase in peak bodies – including the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and the Ambulance Union State Council - formally endorsing a pill testing trial (Jan-Feb). QandA host a special episode on pill testing, drug law reform and drug policy. Panelists included Dr Marianne Jauncey, Dr David Caldicott, Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith, Former AFP Police Commissioner Mick Palmer and Kerryn Redpath (Feb 18). New report released: “Alcohol and other drug use in regional and remote Australia: consumption, harms and access to treatment” in the aim of identifying trends in alcohol and other drug use in Regional and remote Australia. It showed that A) people living in Regional and remote areas of Australia were more likely than people living in Major cities to have consumed alcohol at quantities that placed them at risk of harm from an alcohol-related disease or injury; B) Levels of recent drug use were similar between remoteness areas, however the type of illicit drug used varied, with much more use of ecstasy and cocaine in cities and more use of cannabis in very remote regions; c) The burden increased with remoteness: Remote and Very remote areas experienced 2.1 and 2.7 times, respectively, the burden of disease attributable to alcohol use, compared with Major cities in 2011 and over the past decade, the rate of drug-induced deaths has increased at a faster rate in Regional and remote areas, up 41% since 2008, compared with a 16% increase in Major cities; D) Agencies in Remote and very remote areas had the highest rate of clients who sought treatment; and E) Clients who sought treatment in Regional and remote areas were more likely than clients in Major cities to travel 1 hour or longer to treatment services over the same period (Mar). Commonwealth Department of Health announced $20 million to support GPS and other allied health professionals in regional and remote Australia to access professional development and specialist skills in addiction medicine (Mar). Scott Morrison elected as Prime Minister: with a minority Liberal/National Coalition Government (May). New data released: “Trends in substance use among Australian secondary school students 1996–2017.” This showed that use of alcohol among secondary students in Australia has declined since the 2000s, most markedly among those aged 12 to 15, and that in general use of illicit drugs has also declined. The main exception is cannabis and ecstasy (May). New research by Hughes et al released: “Criminal justice responses relating to personal use and possession of illicit drugs: The reach of Australian drug diversion programs and barriers and facilitators to expansion.” This found Australian police divert 55% offenders with a principal offence of use/possession away from courts, and that the biggest determinant of access to diversion is the state in which someone lives – as only 32% offenders in WA were diverted compared to 98% in SA. It outlined unanimous support for expanding diversion in Australia and 10 steps to do this, including a) ensuring all jurisdictions (particularly NSW & Qld) provide diversion for all illicit drugs, 2) switching from a discretionary to legislative models, such as the South Australian Police Drug Diversion Initiative, or a hybrid legislative & 3) considering newer models of therapeutic diversion delivery e.g. online versus face to face (Jun). The ACIC received an extra $4.8 billion to extend wastewater analysis for 4 years in Australia (until June 2023) (Jun). New report published: National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program Report 7. This compared wastewater analysis results from Australia for 2018 against data from 25 other countries across Europe, USA, Canada and South Africa. This showed that Australia ranked second highest in terms of combined stimulant use after the USA taking into account use of amphetamines, methamphetamines, cocaine and MDMA. The next highest countries were the Netherlands, Iceland and Canada (at 3rd, 4th and 5th respectively). Australia was also second for methylamphetamine (behind USA) and MDMA (behind Netherlands) specifically, but reported relatively low cocaine consumption (ranked at 17th) (Jun). New report published: “Illicit Drug Data Report 2017-18.” This showed that in 2017–18, there were 112,827 drug seizures and 30.6 tonnes of illicit drugs seized nationally. The weight of illicit drugs seized nationally has increased 130.0 per cent over the last decade, from 13.3 tonnes in 2008–09 to a record 30.6 tonnes in 2017–18. ATS remained the second most seized illicit drugs (11,205kg). There were 148,373 recorded illicit drug offences in 2017-18 (154,650 in 2016-17) of which 90.3% = consumer and 9.7% = provider arrests. The number of clan labs continued to decrease from 463 in 2016-17 to 432 in 2017-18. Most were for meth/amphetamine but 22 laboratories were detected in 2017–18 producing GHB/GBL and 20 laboratories detected producing MDMA the highest number reported in the last decade (Jul). The Penington Institute released a new report: “Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2019.” This analysed overdose deaths from 2001 until 2017. It showed: in 2017 there were 1,612 unintentional drug-induced deaths in Australia = > four unintentional drug-induced deaths per day, or one death every 5.4 hours; the no. of unintentional drug-induced deaths has increased significantly over the past 15 years, from 981 in 2001 to 1,612 in 2017 (a 64.3% increase) – outstripping both the rate of population growth (27.8%) and number of deaths due to the road-toll (1,246 in 2017); the rate of unintentional drug-induced deaths continues to increase in rural and regional Australia, with a 24% between 2011 to 2017 vs a 5% increase in capital cities; and opioids were the drug group most commonly identified in unintentional drug-induced deaths in 2017 (involved in 904 deaths, of which 358 = heroin and 344 = oxycodone / morphine / codeine), followed by benzodiazepines (involved in 583 deaths). But, analysis of trends showed a significant rise in deaths involving two main drug types: a) heroin and b) stimulants (including methamphetamine) (Aug). An Audit of the Commonwealth Department of Health achievements under the National Ice Action Strategy showed limited progress: “While Australian Government funding to the alcohol and other drug sector has increased and actions have progressed, there is no monitoring to assess whether progress is being made toward the Strategy’s goal of reducing the prevalence Caitlin Hughes – Last updated 15 January 2020. For comments email: [email protected] 1 of ice use and resulting harms across the Australian community. This reflects that the department does not have an evaluation approach in place for the National Ice Action Strategy and is not monitoring any progress towards the goals and objective” (Sep). Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2019 introduced – the third iteration of the welfare drug testing provisions (11 Sep). Bill passed the house of representatives but not the senate (17 Oct). New NDARC report released: “Australian Drug Trends 2019: Key Findings from the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) Interviews.” This found use of most illicit drugs was stable. 55% reported using heroin in 2019 compared to 54% in 2018 and 78% reported use of methamphetamine compared to 77% in 2018. The median price of heroin nationally was $350 for one gram, significantly higher than the median price in 2018 ($280). In contrast, the median price of crystal methamphetamine recorded in 2019 was the lowest recorded since 2003 ($260) and a significant decrease from $300 in 2018, and a further decrease from 2014 - $500 (Oct). New NDARC report released: “Australian Drug Trends 2019: Key Findings from the Ecstasy and Related Drug Reporting System (EDRS) Interviews.” This showed recent use of ecstasy pills continued to fall (67% vs 75% in 2018) while recent use of ecstasy caps rose (77% in 2019 versus 72% in 2018). There was a significant increase in median days of ecstasy cap use from 6 days in 2018 to 8 days in 2019 (13% reported weekly use compared to 8% in 2018) and the median cost of an ecstasy capsule decreased from $25 in 2018 to $20 in 2019-the lowest median reporting price since reporting began in 2008. Cocaine use increased from 2017 to 2018 to 2019 (48% to 59% to 67%), with the largest per cent of participants reporting recent use since monitoring began. (This was particularly in NSW, Vic and SA). Recent use of methamphetamine was stable in the last 3 years (33%) with 18% consuming crystal (Oct). A new nasal spray form of naloxone – a life-saving antidote medicine used to treat a narcotic overdose in an emergency situation – was added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
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