Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform

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    Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform was formed as a direct result of heroin related deaths in the Australian Capital Territory. It believes that prohibition laws are more the problem than the solution. It seeks laws and policies which will eliminate the deaths and minimise the health and social harm.

    FFDLR believes society should help people come through any drug using experience alive and as healthy as possible. In other words FFDLR is about promotion of life and wellbeing. This is more important than being "drug free".

    Its members include parents, siblings, friends, past and present illicit drug users and other concerned members of the community. 

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We  want laws and policies which will eliminate the deaths and minimise the health and social harm. 
In other words FFDLR is about promotion of life and wellbeing.

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Comments on draft National Drug Strategy The draft National Drug Strategy 2010 - 2015 was released for comment in December 2010. FFDLR sees serious flaws with the strategy. These concerns include: lack of recognition that the laws, policies and procedures cause harms to individuals, families and communities; lack of leadership, innovation and consideration of overseas experiences, including changes occurring in the UN; lack of balance; and selective use of evidence.

Read FFDLR's submission here >>

Ethan Nadleman on tour downunder to speak at the Press Club Canberra Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance - the USA's leading drug policy reform organisation will be speaking at the National Press Club, 16 National Circuit, Canberra on Tuesday Nov 23 from 11.45am - 1.30pm (including time for lunch). Topic:  "What Australia can learn from America's failed war on drugs".

Ethan Nadelmann argues that the political elite in most countries of the world clearly understand global prohibition has not worked and can never be effective.

Educated at Harvard and the London School of Economics, Ethan Nadelmann has often written about drug law reform in the US media as well as many influential academic publications. He will be travelling across Australia to warn about the risks of continuing with a failed policy.  He argues the war on drugs is no answer at all, that criminalisation is not a way forward and the challenge is to reduce the harms and have an alternative approach based on science, public health and human rights.
'Candidates on Drugs'

Find the report of the forum
 here >>> or listen to the audio here >>>

Report of Public Forum to hear candidates views on drugs policy
Held on Monday 9th August, 2010

  • Drug policy is an important issue but it rarely gets the rational debate that it deserves. 

  • Drugs are implicated in many of our most costly social problems – homelessness, poverty, mental health, child neglect, family breakdown and should be of high priority to our governments.

  • At election time drugs policy is often only raised on a tough law and order platform killing off any real debate.

This event provided the opportunity for a candidate from the Greens, ALP and the Democrats to answer questions and provide information on their party’s policies on drug issues prior to the forthcoming election on 21st August, 2010. The Liberals did not nominate a candidate to speak at the forum.

 
ACT Drug Action Week Launch The address to launch Drug Action Week in the ACT was given by Dr Ken Crispin, the recently retired Supreme Court judge of the Australian Capital Territory . He was appointed President of the ACT Court of Appeal in 2001.  He was first admitted to the Bar in 1972 and appointed as a Queens Counsel in 1988.  He was the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions during 1991-94 and President of the ACT Bar Association during 1996-97.  He has been Chairperson of the ACT Law Reform Commission since 1996 and Chairperson of the ACT Criminal Law Consultative Committee since 1998.

In his address he said this:

"During the last four decades, western governments have waged what has been described as a war on drugs. New offences have been created, penalties have been massively increased, law-enforcement bodies have been given new powers, and hundreds of thousands of people have been arrested and sent to prison. Politicians and senior officials have constantly told us that they are winning the war, that the flow of drugs into our countries is being stemmed by the rigorous enforcement of the law, and that sooner or later the problem will be wholly overcome. I wish I could believe them. I wish I could believe that narcotics and other dangerous drugs will one day be driven out of our lands like St Patrick is said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. I wish I could believe that there will be no more need for rehabilitation programs, that the courts will see no more drug dependent offenders and that I will never have to attend any more funerals for young people who were little more than children when their lives ended in misery and squalor."

Read the full text of his speech here>>

Transform launch new guide to legal regulation of drugs in the House of Commons

Transform is pleased to announce that their latest publication, ' After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation' has been launched at an event in the House of Commons on the 12th of November, with simultaneous launches taking place in the US (at the Drug Policy Alliance conference in Albuquerque ), Australia and Mexico. December will see further launch events in Brazil and the EU parliament.

In conjunction with Transform, the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation are launching this document in Australia on Monday 15 November 2009 in the NSW Parliament House Press
Room.

Greens MLC Ian Cohen is sponsoring the launch, which will be undertaken by Prof Peter Baume (former Liberal Party Senator and Federal Minister and former Chancellor of the ANU) and Philip Adams (broadcaster and writer).
Dr Norm Stamper from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) spoke at a public meeting in the Canberra Legislative Assembly on 26 October 2009. His talk was entitled "The inhumane and unjust War against Drugs". Listen to the audio of the meeting here >>
To supplement the audio click here for a PowerPoint presentation.

 

Upcoming FFDLR events

[Forums/docs/Upcoming events.htm]

Recent Newsletters

[Newsletters/Newsletters.htm]

Current issues & events

World developments

  • Global state of harm reduction - see IHRA report here >> and the poster here >>

Countries that provide heroin 
as an opiate substitution treatment

Belgium
Canada
Denmark 
Germany
Luxembourg
Netherlands 
Spain
Switzerland
UK

Countries that provide morphine and/or codeine
 as an opiate substitution therapy

Austria
France
Luxembourg 
Switzerland

The German parliament passed the law last Thursday evening (28 May 2009) following a careful trial and evaluation in 6 cities. Eligible persons for admission to the treatment will be those over 23 years of age and who have been addicted for more than five years and who have failed to respond to other treatments.

Germany has now joined Switzerland, The Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom in making prescription heroin a standard treatment for those severely addicted to opiates who have failed other treatments.

In 2001 Portugal decriminalised all drugs including heroin and cocaine. There were many who predicted adverse outcomes such as rampant drug use, high rates of drug tourism, increased addiction and related illnesses. However some eight years later, none of these predictions have eventuated. More here>>>

  • Harm reduction

 

Australian developments

  • Drug Strategies

  • Model Criminal Code

  • ACT's model prison?

 

   

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