HMAS Arunta is returning to port after a nine month deployment in which time it discovered over 1.3 tonnes of illegal drugs hidden inside foreign vessels bound for Australia.
The crew seized 800kg of hashish in March, 250kg of heroin in May and another 260kg of heroin in June. HMAS Newcastle will take over from Arunta in the same region.
Read More
The Australian Journal of Pharmacy has reported that in the latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) it shows that more people aged over 40 are taking illegal substances.
The proportion of people questioned by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare with a positive response jumped to 16 per cent.
The most commonly used drugs across all age groups are cannabis, pharmaceuticals (misused, not taken for their proper reason), cocaine and ecstasy.
Ice is the most used methamphetamine – it leapt from 22% in 2010 to 57% today. In fact, methamphetamine use has now overtaken alcohol in Australia as “the drug of most concern”.
Older people are also more likely to binge drink. The survey found an increase in the number of people aged over 50 who consume 11 or more standard drinks in a single sitting.
Read More
It beggars belief but it is true. Police are discovering that the age limit on young people using illicit drugs is now less than teenage years. Over the past few weeks they have found people as young as 10 years of age high on Ice.
This is just one of many alarming incidents across the nation…including a mass drug overdose involving a dozen teens at Yeppoon…a grandmother trying to smuggle drugs into a jail…authorities being asked to examine if there is a connection between Islamic extremism and drugs since finding out that Brighton gunman Yacqub Khayre was a drug user from the age of 16…and the revelation that Ice cartels have set up a network across Victorian regional towns.
Read More
Does workplace drug testing cause more negativity than completely ignoring potential drug issues?!
Which is worse? Wanting to make your business drug-safe and therefore requesting your employees to undergo drug testing…or not doing anything at all?
Employers have a legal right to request that their employees consent to drug testing, but what happens to internal relationships and morale when workers object to being tested?
Employers are accountable for providing duty of care to their staff. For this reason, it is obvious that they are keen to know that their environment is a safe one.
Drug testing is a proven and effective means of determining this. Within 24 hours they can be aware of just how safe their office, factory, warehouse, retail showroom, machinery and vehicles really are.
However, how does this impact workplace-relations when workers might feel maligned?
Read More
Australia is setting new records for all the wrong reasons…with the largest amount of methamphetamines ever seized by police. The 903 kilogram haul has a street value of close to $1 billion.
Police found the drugs hidden inside 70 boxes of wooden floorboards. They had come into the country from Asia via Melbourne port and were stored in a Melbourne warehouse.
Read More
Many of us make a fatal assumption when it comes to drug users.
Most people still assume that drug addiction is a problem mainly found with lowly-educated, marginalised people in Australia’s lower socio-economic suburbs.
However, a recent article written by Rachel Olding for the Sydney Morning Herald shows the opposite is true.
Read More
Wondered why so much cocaine is coming into Australia? It’s because the dealers can make more money here than any other country on earth.
The 2017 Global Drug Survey has found that cocaine in Australia is the most expensive in the world.
17.5% of illicit drugs sold Down Under were cocaine. This compared to cannabis (48%) and MDMA (21.4%). LSD (12.1), magic mushrooms (8.6) and nitrous (8.2) followed by amphetamines, ketamine, poppers, shisha and methamphetamine. Of course, alcohol is the most popular drug taken by Australians. Nine out of 10 people surveyed had consumed alcohol.
With cannabis topping the charts for Most Popular Illicit Drug it came as no surprise that Australians are the biggest users of bongs in the world.
Cocaine sells for about $15 per gram in South America and $75 per gram in parts of Europe. Compare that to $375 here in Australia.
Read More
Yes, it is a jungle out there. We’ve got billions of dollars of illicit drugs being sold in cities and towns across the nation and the authorities are struggling to find them.
Since April we have been passing on the main drug reports appearing in the media. They are scary, tragic, almost impossible to believe.
June started with the folllowing news breaks…
A man who randomly attacked seven people in Sydney during an Ice-fuelled rampage will be in jail for at least five years.
Residents of Geelong are at a loss as to how they can stem the Ice-related crime spree which has hit their city.
Authorities have identified some cities and suburbs as “Ice corridors” where there is a lot of activity. Logan in Brisbane is one. Bunbury in WA another.
In Western Australia, the statistics for drug possession and drug use are not good. According to an article in a number of WA newspapers they say the methamphetamines epidemic “shows little sign of abating.” To the point that there are now more people being treated for drug use than there are for alcohol.
The number of treatments through drug and alcohol services, where the primary substance of concern was methamphetamine, leapt from 6705 treatments in 2015 to 7868 treatments last year. That’s a huge increase of 17 percent.
Read More
People continue to attempt to smuggle illicit drugs into the country…crimes including murder are being related to drug uses…governments and security authorities are receiving millions of dollars to try to better tackle the drug epidemic and they are holding special forums to discuss the seriousness of drug use in our nation.
The Geelong Advertiser revealed that the drug Ice played a part in almost all murders in that city over the past five years…
Needle and syringe program (NSP) workers in Mildura have received extra training to help them work with Ice users…
460 grams of methylamphetamine, 11,000 MDMA tablets, 206 grams of cocaine and two kilograms of cannabis have been seized by South Australian police and 12 people were arrested, six of whom are bikie gang members…
Read More
I turned up for work and wondered where my business partner was. Several hours later I discovered why he didn’t appear. He had been found dead in an alley way at Kings Cross with a needle still in his arm. He had died of a heroin overdose.
I had no idea that he had a drug addiction. We had been working together for 15 years. How was it that he had managed to keep it a secret from me?
The shock of this tragic discovery worsened when I found out he had been fiddling the books in order to pay for his habit. He had taken more than $300,000 from the company account.
No matter how well you think you know someone…you don’t.
The story on the left is not just any story. It is the story of Drug-Safe’s founder Michael White. The events destroyed his then-business. It was the reason he created Drug-Safe Australia and made it his mission to help companies like yours avoid similar tragedies.
One person, one incident could ruin your business forever. Not to mention the lives impacted of employees, families and depending on the incident even random members of the public.
It is our mission to help you avoid such tragic incidents from impacting or destroying your company. Our professional staff members will work with you to determine the best approach in protecting your employees.
From drug testing policy development, staff drug safety education, drug and alcohol testing and drug-safe workplace certification – our services are
Call us today for a confidential conversation and discover how we can help you!
Whether you are in a capital city or in the remote parts of Australia. With our fleet of mobile drug testing units and locations across Australia, we can cover most of the continent.
1300 DRUGSAFE