This report provides an overview of the production and consumption of amphetamines and other synthetic drugs (AOSD) in Australia and discusses the extent to which organised crime is involved in manufacture and distribution. It examines the National Drug Strategy, reviews its main aims and effectiveness, and provides a brief overview of the key policy and...

This report details a project to develop a national Needle and Syringe Program data set to facilitate consistent and comparable data collection and reporting. While jurisdictions have now been reporting information on NSPs for a number of years, there are concerns that the information reported by jurisdictions is currently not nationally consistent or comparable because...

The Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) is Australia’s federally funded national drug monitoring system. The purpose of the IDRS is to provide a standardised, comparable approach to the monitoring of data relating to the use of opiates, cocaine, methamphetamine and cannabis. The IDRS is intended to act as a strategic early warning system, identifying emerging...

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs made 128 recommendations in its report, the Road to Recovery: Report on the Inquiry into Substance Abuse in Australian Communities. The report has informed government policy in many areas, including the development of the National Drug Strategy 2004-09, and continues to inform the government’s...

Recent media coverage suggests that Australia is in the grip of a methamphetamine crisis that is bringing our mental health system to the brink of collapse. Andrew Macintosh looks at three questions. How big is the methamphetamine problem? What are the effects of rising methamphetamine use on society, with particular emphasis on mental illness? What...