 Good evening. Join me. This is Drugs and Report Air News. Promise. Life. Drugs and Report Air News. Love and hope and trust and confidence. Tonight there's something special to talk about. So won't you join us? Hello, I'm Peter Sharushi and you are watching Drug Reporter News. Let's listen to our monthly updates from the world of drug policy reform. Public opinion on drug policies is changing in Australia. Research published in Drug and Alcohol Review in December 2021 suggests a transformation in the public views on drugs over the past decade. The National Survey found 26% of Australians, just over one in four, supported legalising the personal use of cannabis in 2013. By 2019, this had risen to 41%. Over the same time, support for legalising the personal use of ecstasy rose from 7% to 9% while cocaine it went from 6% to 8%. More than a quarter of those who do not support legalisation endorse the full decriminalisation of drug use. The special commission of the inquiry into the drug eyes handed to the New South Wales government in January 2020 recommended decriminalisation of drugs and reframing substance use as a health issue with greater investment in treatment. The current research confirmed that general mood in the public in Australia is against punitive actions such as imprisonment for drug use. First US overdose prevention sites saved many lives. According to the clients and service providers, the two first sanctioned overdose sites of the US have saved many lives since they opened in New York last November. They reported the Guardian. More than 100,000 Americans died of an accidental overdose in the year ending April 2020, a sharp increase compared with the previous year. Social isolation related to the COVID-19 pandemic fuels the overdose epidemic. Traditional abstinence-based programmes such as long-term rehabilitation or 12 steps meetings have failed to save the lives of many people who could not quit drug use. Overdose prevention sites provide a safe, humane and hygienic space for people to use drugs and connect them to other health and social services. Since the centres opened, over 100 overdoses have been reversed without medical attention and ambulance was requested once for a participant with additional medical complications. No one has died at either centre nor at any more than 120 OPCs operating in other countries. Middle-class drug users could lose UK passports on their Boris Johnson's plans. You've got to invest in rehabilitation. Everybody who knows about drugs crime will tell you that 300,000 people, their lives are chaotic. They need to be taken off drugs. They need to be put into rehab. You couldn't invest in rehab. But you've also got to come down hard on the gangsters who are making hell of people's lives. The new national drug strategy, titled From Harm to Hope includes a welcome new focus on long-neglected drug treatment services but continues the same populist low-end-order posturing on drug enforcement that has proved so ineffectual and counterproductive over the last half century, writes Steve Rawls, senior policy analyst of Transform Foundation. The strategy details new funding totaling 780 million pounds over the next three years, significantly reversing the cuts of the past decade and notably including dedicated resources for employment and housing support for people who use drugs and community care for people with drug problems leaving prison. But the plan also includes some controversial elements such as threatening lifestyle users of Class A drugs by taking their passports or driving licenses, accusing them of driving exploitative practices with their demand. A senior metropolitan police commander who wrote his forces current drug strategy faces the sack after being accused of taking cannabis, LSD and magic mushrooms, reported the Guardian on Monday. Commander Julian Bennett, who oversaw the dismissal of two officers for drug misuse earlier, took the drugs while on holiday in France and gross misconduct hearing has been told. After being informed on that occasion that there was reasonable cause to suspect that he had used cannabis, he allegedly claimed he had taken CBD, cannabidiol, for a medical condition with his face as a reason for refusing to undergo drug testing. A photograph sent on WhatsApp showing cannabis on a table had been submitted as evidence the hearing in London was told. Federal prosecutors in New York charged four men on February 2 in connection with the accidental overdose deaths of actor Michael K. Williams of the Viere and Boardwalk Empire fame. Despite all these strategies and punitive approaches being ramped up in recent years, Dr. Sheila Vakaria from Drug Policy Alliance said to FilterMag, Fentanyl is continuing to be used widely over those deaths involving Fentanyl only continue to be on the rise and Fentanyl continues to be an entrenched part of drug markets and is emerging in markets where it didn't exist five years ago. According to an opinion piece written by Echinola in the Guardian, a comprehensive federal plan that includes decriminalization of drug use would prevent similar deaths much more effectively than tough on drugs policies. Malta's new cannabis rules should serve as a model for other European states of how to end the unnecessary prosecution of low-level drug users and strike a blow against organized crime. According to the minister responsible for the law, Malta's law allows users to carry 7 grams of the drug and store up to 50 grams at home making it the first EU state to legalize cannabis. German chancellor Olaf Scholz is in favor of legalization as well but the country's new government has not set a time limit on the reform yet. It is useless to say you can have 5 grams but then at the same time do not provide a safe and regularized route from where to obtain cannabis. Bonicci said you can't do one and not the other. You have to do them both or do nothing. Doing nothing wasn't an option. Through this reform, we are not only giving dignity to a lot of people who are looked upon as if they were criminals when they are not criminals but we're also giving a safe and regularized route. You cannot do one and not do the other. Thank you for joining us. What we've been able to achieve has been done with your help. Now we go on to the next stop making a final commitment. Now we need your support again. Support drug and report their news. Today...