{"id":18502,"date":"2025-01-05T18:37:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-05T17:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=18502"},"modified":"2025-05-11T16:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T15:18:12","slug":"drug-free-australias-substack-how-harm-reduction-devastated-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/01\/drug-free-australias-substack-how-harm-reduction-devastated-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug Free Australia’s Substack – How Harm Reduction devastated Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

OPENING STATEMENT BY AUTHOR: Dec 31, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

Drug Free Australia has launched a new Substack<\/strong> where we start out with the foundational failure of Australia\u2019s 1985 Harm Minimisation experiment which has literally seen thousands of families (5,400 between 2000 and 2007 alone) needlessly grieving for a lost loved one – all directly as a result of our adoption of Harm Reduction measures.\u00a0 If you think this is fanciful, you need to look at the cold, hard evidence.<\/p>\n

If you live in another country, this is precisely a drug policy approach you need to fight to avoid and you may need to use this data to do it.<\/p>\n

Gary Christian, President, Drug Free Australia. Phone:\u00a00422 163 141<\/p>\n

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1985 – Australia\u2019s world debut of Harm Reduction<\/h4>\n
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In 1985 Australia was the first<\/a>\u00a0country worldwide to introduce Harm Reduction** programs (Needle & Syringe (NSPs) as well as methadone maintenance programs) as an official third pillar of its Federal drug policy.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Meant to reduce drug-related deaths and harm, Australia\u2019s mortality\u00a0quadrupled<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0during the first 14 years from around\u00a0250<\/a>\u00a0deaths in 1984 to\u00a01,116<\/a>\u00a0in 1999.<\/p>\n

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Use of all major illicit drug categories skyrocketed as well. By the 1998 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, that is within thirteen years, use<\/a>\u00a0in metro areas of Australia increased as below:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Looking at United Nations\u2019\u00a0Drug Report<\/a>\u00a0figures for all countries worldwide, by 1998 Australia had the highest drug use amongst OECD countries, almost double that of the third, fourth and fifth highest countries. Only New Zealand, in second place, came close, having also adopted Harm Reduction programs in\u00a01987<\/a><\/p>\n

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Harm Reduction programs, with their explicit \u2018safe use of illicit drugs\u2019 messaging, devastated Australian families with skyrocketing deaths and use.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

1998 – Tough on Drugs as a valid \u2018control\u2019<\/h4>\n

In 1998, the Federal Government, responding to community alarm at the unacceptable mortality, introduced a new approach called\u00a0Tough on Drugs<\/a>. Quadrupling the drugs budget to focus on prevention messaging, heavily expanded rehab and better policing of borders saw use of any illicit drug decrease by\u00a039%<\/a>\u00a0and overdose deaths plummet by\u00a067%<\/a>\u00a0by 2001, which is where mortality remained for 7 years. Throughout this period the Government chose not to close any Harm Reduction programs, which in light of this analysis, were simply running interference as an impediment to even better outcomes.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, this drug policy approach over a nine year period acted as a control by which the other two periods of Harm Reduction ascendency can be judged.<\/p>\n

2007 – Prevention takes a back seat once again<\/h4>\n

With a new Federal Government scrapping Tough on Drugs in 2007, prevention and rehab took a back seat, although heroin supply at the borders remained suppressed. And what happened was a virtual repeat of the first Harm Reduction era, demonstrating the same harm-multiplying dynamic. Yet with this official government\u00a0graph<\/a> below (with our added commentary overlaid) there is more to see than with the previous data.<\/p>\n

In the decade following 2007 opiate deaths increased\u00a0260%<\/a>, while other illicits drugs contributing to overdose deaths each increased\u00a0210%-590%<\/a>. The reinstatement of a Harm Reduction priority was clearly a tide that lifted all boats.<\/p>\n

We therefore find it conclusive that Harm Reduction has very demonstrably, substantially and consistently multiplied drug-related deaths and harm in this country.<\/p>\n

Harm Reduction proponents will invariably claim that there is some hidden confounder that invalidates any conclusion, but the lockstep rise and fall of all drug types in concert with the differing drug policy eras rules out any major change in supply for any illicit (barring the 2000 heroin drought), just as it does with any possibility of a change in definition of a drug-related death. There are no viable confounders.<\/p>\n

What is clear is that drug prevention and rehabilitation, as the first demand reduction pillar of Australia\u2019s \u2018Harm Minimisation\u2019 approach, along with supply reduction at our borders, are both undermined by any \u2018safe use of illicit drugs\u2019 programming which is an explicit and implicit message of any harm reduction intervention.<\/p>\n

Australia has given the world the gift of a viable \u2018control\u2019 drug policy period which ably shows the devastation caused by Harm Reduction.<\/p>\n

It is time for the world to stand up and take notice. Hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved each year when all countries, including Australia, follow the lead of Australia\u2019s Tough on Drugs policy.<\/p>\n

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** Harm Reduction, by\u00a0definition<\/a>, has no vested interest in drug prevention.<\/p>\n

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Source: https:\/\/open.substack.com\/pub\/drugfreeaustralia\/p\/how-harm-reduction-devastated-australia?r=1hnlai&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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OPENING STATEMENT BY AUTHOR: Dec 31, 2024 Drug Free Australia has launched a new Substack where we start out with the foundational failure of Australia\u2019s 1985 Harm Minimisation experiment which has literally seen thousands of families (5,400 between 2000 and 2007 alone) needlessly grieving for a lost loved one – all directly as a result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,90,23,104,40,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-global-drug-legalisation-efforts","category-harm-reduction","category-political-sector","category-prevention-research","category-treatment-addiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}