Approaches Towards Drug Use in Australia: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report delves into the multifaceted approaches to drug use in Australia, examining the strategies and policies implemented by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation. It explores the impact of political influences on drug-related policies, highlighting the perspectives of various political parties and their responses to public opinion. The report analyzes the evolution of policy frameworks, including the National Drug Strategy, and assesses their effectiveness across different jurisdictions. Furthermore, it investigates the impact on legislative developments, including the criminalization and decriminalization of drug possession and the implementation of diversionary programs and drug courts. The report emphasizes the importance of research, evidence-based practices, and the need for comprehensive approaches to address the complex issues surrounding drug use in Australia. Finally, it concludes with a discussion on the collaborative efforts between government and non-profit organizations in addressing drug-related issues and their effects on politics, legislation, and overall policy.

Running head: APPROACHES TOWARDS DRUG USE IN AUSTRALIA
Approaches towards Drug Use in Australia
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1APPROACHES TOWARDS DRUG USE IN AUSTRALIA
Introduction:
The use of drugs is prevalent in our society which created negative impact upon the
lifestyle of the individuals. It is worth mentioning that, at the end individuals would be
responsible for their personal preferences regarding the use of illegal and harmful substances.
From the very beginning the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the
Alcohol and Drug Foundation has implemented various strategies and policies for the purpose of
eliminating drug abuse in Australia (Bryant et al., 2016). The policies and strategies were
implemented in order to reduce the impact of harm to the general public. However, the objective
was to reduce the accessibility of harmful drugs by reducing the use of drugs on the part of the
individuals. In recent era, the communities of Australia have increased the use of illicit drugs to a
great extent. In order to address the issues of drug use, various law enforcement activities were
introduced however; it could not eliminate the issue completely. Various policies were
implemented to reduce the risk of harm associated with drug use however; failed to provide
limitations to the upward trend in drug use (Chalmers, Lancaster & Hughes, 2016). It is evident
that from the beginning, the trade of illicit drugs has been attracting both the political and social
interest of the communities in Australia. In order to address the issues related to use of drugs, the
Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) has implemented the National Wastewater
Drug Monitoring Program for the purpose of conducting national research on the use of illicit
drugs. However, much emphasis has been laid upon the use of methylamphetamine and other
harmful substances (Degenhardt, Hall & Gartner, 2015). In this regard, it is noteworthy to
mention here that, wastewater analysis has been considered as an international tool that is
extensively used in measuring and interpreting the use of drugs within the Australian
communities. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), in the early stage has
recognized the benefits of utilizing waste water analysis in establishing the development of

2APPROACHES TOWARDS DRUG USE IN AUSTRALIA
scientific expertise within the academic institutions of Australia for the purpose of introducing a
national program which is based upon international models.
The Alcohol and Drug Foundation has implemented a number of programs in order to
prevent harm related to drug-abuse. According to the authorities of the Alcohol and Drug
Foundation, it is important on the part of the communities to promote healthy and resilient
approaches for the purpose of preventing drug abuse in Australia (Gately, Ellis & Morris, 2016).
In his regard, the authorities strongly emphasized that the programs has been implemented in
order to prevent harm to public, environment as well as changing practices and attributes of the
society for the purpose of creating the world a safer place to live in. from the beginning, the
programs and initiatives undertaken by the Alcohol and Drug Foundation are based upon
evidences and extensive research conducted by their authorities (Horwitz, 2017). It has also
initiated collaboration and learning processes within the local communities in order to support
the prevention of drug use. In the later part of the assignment, emphasis can be laid upon the
impact of politics upon the approaches taken by the Australian Criminal Intelligence
Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation as well as on the legislative
developments.
The influence of politics:
It is evident that politics plays a significant role in creating both positive and negative
impact upon the use of drugs. In this regard, it is worthwhile to mention here that, though the
political factors influencing the drug abuse is changeable; it is often subjected to the
philosophical ideas on the part of the government. According to recent reports, the Labor
Government in Western Australia supported a consideration in favor of a heroin trial on

3APPROACHES TOWARDS DRUG USE IN AUSTRALIA
principle. However, the liberal parties were opposed to such principles. Modern authors were of
the perspective that nowadays the political parties are emphasizing much upon public opinion
rather than rather than providing a new shape to it. Modern scholars opined that as drug-related
issues do not bring considerable votes, therefore, the government policies have been formulated
to serve the interest of the drug users (Lai et al., 2016). According to contemporary scholars,
there are various situations in which both the government authorities as well as the political
parties failed to comply with the recommendations of extensive research conducted by the
Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation
(Maddox et al., 2016). The political parties in their part failed to address the issues regarding
drug use and implementing plans for the general public. However, in recent era, various policies
and penalties has been introduced by both the government and non-profit organizations as a
result of public demand. According to modern scholars, in spite of various newly introduced
policies and penalties, as a result of threat of legal consequences the authorities failed to deter the
users of harmful and illicit drugs. According to the point of view of modern autocrats, as a result
of increasing impact by the political agenda and public concern, political funding has created
significant influence upon the use of drugs (Pearson-Dennett et al., 2015). In this regard, authors
were of the opinion that, according to various concerns that has been raised by the families of the
drug users in Australia, the number of funding has increased considerably and have targeted such
population in general. Authors emphasized on the part that politics plays significant role in
addressing the issues of drugs in Western Australia and its adjoining regions (McKetin et al.,
2018).
The resulting impact on policy:

4APPROACHES TOWARDS DRUG USE IN AUSTRALIA
Both the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Alcohol and Drug
Foundation have created favorable impact upon the newly implemented policy frameworks that
has been designed to respond to the issues regarding drugs. Modern scholars laid much emphasis
upon the National Drug Strategy (NDS) that has been implemented as a result of various
initiatives on the part of the government of Australia. Therefore, modern researchers were
commissioned to examine the development of drug-related policies in order to address the
prevailing issues of drug abuse. In this regard, modern researchers intended to highlight the fact
that the potential value of these policy frameworks has the ability to involve themselves in the
relevant sectors of the government and beyond (Tscharke et al., 2016). The goal of these policy
frameworks implemented by the government and non-profit organizations is to promote the
creation of an environment where the Commonwealth and the State Territories has developed
various drug policies and strategies. Modern scholars highlighted the fact that, the implemented
policy frameworks has been evaluated in terms of its ability, principles, approaches and
objectives across various jurisdictions and between different sectors. However, contemporary
scholars were of the opinion that for the purpose of efficiently addressing the emerging harms
and risks associated with drugs, it is important to take into consideration sound evidences as well
as social and economic conditions. However, researchers have a different perspective towards
the impact of policy frameworks on drug-related issues. According to them, in order to address
the prevailing issue of drug use in Australia, detailed research should be carried and in such
process the national and state policies needs to be examined (Weinberger, Funk & Goodwin,
2016). However, much attention should be paid on interviewing the authorities of government
and non-profit organizations in order to gather detailed information regarding the initiatives that
were used in addressing issues in communities.

5APPROACHES TOWARDS DRUG USE IN AUSTRALIA
Impact on Legislative development:
The approaches on the part of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC)
and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation have reasonable impact upon legislative development as
well. The framers of legislative policies were of the opinion that from the very beginning the
possession and the trade of harmful drugs and substances have been criminalized in Australia. It
is worthwhile to refer here that both the state and territorial laws the use and supply of harmful
drugs in Australia. However, modern authors were of the opinion that the possession of small
quantities of harmful substances and drugs were decriminalized in various jurisdictions of
Australia which includes both South Australia and Western Australia (Yadav et al., 2017).
Modern autocrats emphasized on the diversionary programs. In their opinion, various
diversionary programs which operates under the Illicit Drug Diversion Initiative as an important
part of the national approach of Australian Government efficiently intervened and prevented the
use of illicit drugs. In this regard, it is noteworthy to mention here that the main objective of the
Drug Diversion program is to enhance incentives for drug users for the purpose of identifying
and treating the illicit use of drugs at an early stage. According to the point of view of modern
authors, various Drug Courts were developed in various jurisdictions of Australia in order to deal
with offenders depending upon harmful drugs.
Conclusion:
In the conclusion, it can be stated that both the government sector and the non-profit
organization provided active support in implementing various programs in order to address the
issues of drug use. It is worth mentioning that these policies and programs created favorable
impact upon politics, development of legislation and other policies.

6APPROACHES TOWARDS DRUG USE IN AUSTRALIA
References:
Bryant, J., Ward, J., Wand, H., Byron, K., Bamblett, A., Waples‐Crowe, P., ... & Kaldor, J.
(2016). Illicit and injecting drug use among Indigenous young people in urban, regional and
remote Australia. Drug and alcohol review, 35(4), 447-455.
Chalmers, J., Lancaster, K., & Hughes, C. (2016). The stigmatisation of ‘ice’and under-reporting
of meth/amphetamine use in general population surveys: a case study from
Australia. International Journal of Drug Policy, 36, 15-24.
Degenhardt, L., Hall, W. D. U., & Gartner, C. E. (2015). The epidemiology of tobacco, alcohol,
and illicit drug use and their contribution to the burden of disease. Addiction Medicine:
Principles and Practice, 61(279,000), 8-21.
Gately, N., Ellis, S., & Morris, R. (2016). Drug use monitoring in Australia: An expansion into
the Pilbara.
Horwitz, R. M. (2017). Using implicit association to access drug use trajectories of young
people: Understanding the different drug use pathways for young people who use illicit
substances and investigating the role of implicit identification as a useful indicator of risk of drug
dependency.
Lai, F. Y., O'Brien, J., Bruno, R., Hall, W., Prichard, J., Kirkbride, P., ... & Burns, L. (2016).
Spatial variations in the consumption of illicit stimulant drugs across Australia: a nationwide
application of wastewater-based epidemiology. Science of the Total Environment, 568, 810-818.

7APPROACHES TOWARDS DRUG USE IN AUSTRALIA
Maddox, A., Barratt, M. J., Allen, M., & Lenton, S. (2016). Constructive activism in the dark
web: cryptomarkets and illicit drugs in the digital ‘demimonde’. Information, Communication &
Society, 19(1), 111-126.
McKetin, R., Degenhardt, L., Shanahan, M., Baker, A. L., Lee, N. K., & Lubman, D. I. (2018).
Health service utilisation attributable to methamphetamine use in Australia: Patterns, predictors
and national impact. Drug and alcohol review, 37(2), 196-204.
Pearson-Dennett, V., Flavel, S. C., Wilcox, R. A., Thewlis, D., Vogel, A., White, J., & Todd, G.
(2015). Hand function is altered in individuals with a history of illicit stimulant use. Drug &
Alcohol Dependence, 156, e174.
Tscharke, B. J., Chen, C., Gerber, J. P., & White, J. M. (2016). Temporal trends in drug use in
Adelaide, South Australia by wastewater analysis. Science of the total environment, 565, 384-
391.
Weinberger, A. H., Funk, A. P., & Goodwin, R. D. (2016). A review of epidemiologic research
on smoking behavior among persons with alcohol and illicit substance use disorders. Preventive
medicine, 92, 148-159.
Yadav, M. K., Short, M. D., Aryal, R., Gerber, C., van den Akker, B., & Saint, C. P. (2017).
Occurrence of illicit drugs in water and wastewater and their removal during wastewater
treatment. Water research, 124, 713-727.