The RiverMend Health Website - RiverMend Health is a premier provider of evidence-based, scientifically driven addiction medicine delivering world-class treatment through our nationwide network of leading addiction recovery experts and treatment centers...
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. SAMHSA's mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities.
“The Convention on the Rights of the Child has been under attack since 2008, where those seeking to legalise illicit drug use have sought to position drug users as victims, more vulnerable than children. They are seeking to undermine what is the most ratified (196 countries) of all UN Treaties and Conventions. This document provides the evidentiary basis upon which so many countries agreed to protect their children, focusing here on Article 33 - the Right of the Child to live in an environment free of illicit drug use.”
Background Driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs contributes significantly to road traffic crashes worldwide. This study explored trends of alcohol, methylamphetamine (MA), 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA) and Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), in road crashes from 2010 to 2019 in Victoria, Australia.
Methods We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using data from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and Victoria Police, examining proscribed drug detections in road crashes. Time series graphs per substance explored indicative trends and comparisons between road users. Negative binomial regression models, with robust SEs and adjusted for exposure (kilometres travelled, Victorian licence holders), modelled the incidence rate ratio, with a Bonferroni-adjusted α=0.007 for multiple comparisons.
Results There were 19 843 injured drivers and 1596 fatally injured drivers. MA had the highest prevalence (12.3% of fatalities and 9.1% of injured drivers), demonstrating an increase over time. Overall, 16.8% of car drivers and motorcyclists tested positive for one or more drugs, with 14% of crashes involving a blood alcohol concentration (BAC)≥0.05%. MA and THC were the most common drugs in fatalities. Between 2015 and 2019, MA was detected in 27.9% of motorcyclist fatalities, followed by THC (18.3%) and alcohol ≥0.05% (14.2%), with similar but lower frequencies among injured motorcyclists. Alcohol detections (≥0.05% BAC) in fatalities declined, but increased in injured motorcyclists and car drivers until plateauing in 2017. THC detections rose among injured drivers until 2018, detected in 8.1% and 15.2% of injured and fatal drivers, respectively. MDMA-positive driving decreased among injured drivers and remained stable at ~1% of fatalities.
Conclusions Despite enhanced road safety measures in Victoria, drug-driving persists, indicating a need for revised prevention strategies targeting this growing issue.
Originating in the US, Communities that Care is a public health prevention framework that has been operating in Australia for 25 years.
Over 30 Local Government Areas have used the framework to reduce alcohol consumption, injuries and crime. In the US it has been used to also reduce smoking, cannabis and depression. An Australian cost benefit analysis has shown that using the CTC approach to adolescent alcohol consumption has a return of investment of $2.60.
This presentation outlines the Communities that Care model and how communities can use the model. It also presents findings from the National Australian Cluster Randomised Control Trial, and other national and international longitudinal evidence. (Watch Webinar Here)
The opioid crisis continues to devastate communities across Canada and beyond, with recent research highlighting alarming treatment retention failures that underscore why prevention must be our primary defence. A comprehensive study examining opioid agonist therapy amongst First Nations people in Ontario reveals shocking statistics that every family, educator, and community leader must understand.
The Stark Reality of Opioid Addiction Treatment
New research tracking nearly 18,000 treatment episodes reveals a disturbing truth: prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to opioid addiction. The study found that:
Half of all individuals discontinued their life-saving medication within just 42-71 days
Over 70% of people failed to maintain treatment for a full year
Treatment success rates have actually declined over time
These statistics aren’t just numbers—they represent thousands of lives disrupted, families torn apart, and communities struggling with addiction’s devastating impact.
Why Opioid Addiction Prevention Must Be Our Priority
The research demonstrates that even with the best medical interventions available, maintaining recovery from opioid addiction remains extraordinarily challenging. This reality makes opioid addiction prevention absolutely crucial for protecting our young people and communities.
The Treatment Retention Crisis
The study revealed several factors that made treatment failure more likely:
Living with multiple health conditions
Previous exposure to opioids
Social isolation and lack of community support
Geographic barriers to accessing ongoing care
These findings highlight how complex opioid addiction becomes once established, reinforcing why we must focus our efforts on stopping addiction before it starts.
Building Strong Opioid Addiction Prevention Strategies
Effective prevention requires understanding the pathways that lead to opioid addiction and implementing comprehensive strategies to block them:
Education and Awareness
Comprehensive drug education programmes in schools
Community awareness campaigns about prescription opioid risks
Training for healthcare providers on responsible prescribing practices
Community-Based Prevention
Youth engagement programmes that provide positive alternatives
Family support networks that identify risk factors early
Workplace education about opioid misuse dangers
Policy and Environmental Changes
Stricter controls on opioid prescribing and monitoring
Enhanced security measures for prescription medications
Community policies that reduce access to illegal opioids
The Economic and Social Case for Prevention:
The research findings make a compelling economic argument for investing in opioid addiction prevention rather than treatment alone. When treatment success rates remain disappointingly low despite significant healthcare investment, prevention becomes not just morally imperative but financially prudent.
Communities that invest in robust prevention programmes see:
Reduced healthcare costs over time
Lower crime rates associated with drug-seeking behaviour
Stronger family units and social cohesion
Better educational and employment outcomes for young people
A Prevention-First Approach:
The sobering treatment retention statistics from this research should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, educators, and community leaders. We cannot afford to wait until addiction has taken hold—we must act decisively to prevent it.
Prevention is worth a pound of cure, and when it comes to opioid addiction, this couldn’t be more true. Every young person we protect from initial opioid exposure is a life potentially saved from the devastating cycle of addiction and treatment failure.
The time for action is now. We must strengthen our prevention efforts, support our communities, and ensure that prevention remains our primary defence against the ongoing opioid crisis.
This Policy Proposal has been designed for Australia with the hard learned lessons from other jurisdictions in mind. Ensuring faux claims of perceived manageability are addressed. Not only has there been considerable consultation with health, legal and policy professionals, but with the voice of the vast silent majority of non-substance users being heard. Informing and being informed by this majority demographic who have been kept in the dark on this now heavily engineered and dangerous psychotropic toxin.
Australians deserve best practice safety, health and wellbeing policy.
Alcohol and Tobacco are still the greatest contributors of harm to the public health and safety arena. Adding another psychotropic toxin to the currents of trade will only amplify and add to these growing community harms.
Once a substance is trivialised, normalised, decriminalised, legalised then commercialised – harms will increase and the human cost in short and long-term harms, not least to the emerging generation will be incalculable.
All that will be achieved is the greater accessibility, availability and acceptability of a now addictive and demand sustaining substance. Add to
that, commercialisation – you now have another thriving addiction for profit industry decimating public and community health, with impunity. This is completely contrary to good public health, safety and productivity.
This document will demonstrate that the Penington Institute modelling of vast sums of money to be garnered by the Victorian Government from tax revenues and increased employment will be far outweighed by the health and social costs presented by cannabis legalisation, and that the Penington document is culpably silent on the very real demonstrable costs that far outweigh its touted benefits.
The ‘Perfect Permission’ model of legalised substances has not removed the criminal dealer from the market place, and will not do so in Australia. If the argument is applied that ‘enforcement will ensure the regulated market will not be undermined or black market cannabis continues’, then we could argue that could be done now, whilst the substance is still technically illegal. It is all about political will.
The question then becomes not whether a substance can be policed, but whether there is the political will to police it in the best interest of public health, safety and wellbeing.
World Federation Against Drugs (W.F.A.D) Dalgarno Institute is a member of this global initiative. For evidence based data on best practice drug policy in the global context.
The Institute for Behavior and Health, Inc. is to reduce the use of illegal drugs. We work to achieve this mission by conducting research, promoting ideas that are affordable and scalable...
Drug Free Australia Website. Drug Free Australia is a peak body, representing organizations and individuals who value the health and wellbeing of our nation...
(I.T.F.S.D.P) This international peak body continues to monitor and influence illicit drug policy on the international stage. Dalgarno Institute is a member organisation.
The National Alliance for Action on Alcohol is a national coalition of health and community organisations from across Australia that has been formed with the goal of reducing alcohol-related harm.
RiverMend Health is a premier provider of scientifically driven, specialty behavioral health services to those suffering from alcohol and drug dependency, dual disorders, eating disorders, obesity and chronic pain.
The opioid crisis continues to devastate communities across Canada and beyond, with recent research highlighting alarming treatment retention failures that underscore why prevention must be our primary defence. A comprehensive study examining opioid agonist therapy amongst First Nations people in Ontario reveals shocking statistics that every family, educator, and community leader must understand.
This Policy Proposal has been designed for Australia with the hard learned lessons from other jurisdictions in mind. Ensuring faux claims of perceived manageability are addressed. Not only has there been considerable consultation with health, legal and policy professionals, but with the voice of the vast silent majority of non-substance users being heard. Informing and being informed by this majority demographic who have been kept in the dark on this now heavily engineered and dangerous psychotropic toxin.
