Shifting the focus from handcuffs to health care

Within our last blog post, it was detailed how the ACT Government had announced the decriminalisation of small amounts of commonly used illicit drugs. As such, through the normalisation of illicit substances within society, we can see a changing focus from handcuffs to health care. Instead of criminally punishing people who may suffer addiction, or those who may have made an error in their judgement, the ACT Government is seeking to provide illicit drug users the opportunity to seek health care without being treated as a criminal for their life situation. 

Given this important change in focus towards health care for illicit drug users within society, it is worth asking the question… Do young adults know where to find information and help regarding drug use? In our survey, when we asked respondents how they found information about drugs, 0 respondents said they found information about drug use from a support centre. Instead, 41.7% of respondents said that they find information on drugs online using engines like google and another 41.7% said that they found information through social media such as Instagram or TikTok. The remaining 16.7% of respondents said that they used anonymous forums online to gain information. Finally, when asked if they could name a support service to help with drug use, 37.5% of respondents said they could not name one.

Therefore, the results from these sections of our survey suggest that young adults are not adequately prepared to find health care if they need assistance with their illicit drug use. Within the ACT, there is a free and confidential health and drug checking service, called CanTEST, which provides:

• Chemical analysis of pills/drugs intended for personal use

• Tailored information, harm reduction advice and counselling based on the test results and any other issues raised by qualified alcohol and other drug workers, peer workers and nurses.

• Drop-in nurse consultations offering general health, sexual health and mental health advice. Clients don’t have to have drugs tested to use this service.

You can find more information about this service on the CAHMA website. 

Whilst only a pilot trial, this service offers the necessary help for drug users to ensure that firstly, future drug use is safe and secondly, that users are provided a variety of different health services to treat their drug use such that they can live a happy and healthy life. Within just 3 months of being open, the centre has already discovered a new drug, given the name “CanKet” due to it being found here in Canberra and its chemical similarities to Ketamine. This is now allowing scientists to do further research into how this drug affects people when it is taken, and how it affects people when overdosed, to bring awareness to everyone for safe consumption of it in the future. More about this can be found here on the Australian National University website. 

Additional treatments include advice regarding alcohol use. With this in mind, our blog post tomorrow will address the clear link between alcohol and drug use.