The Australian government expends an estimated $1.7 billion on responding to illicit drugs every year, with policing comprising 64% of this expenditure. One core assumption underpinning this investment is that police can deter, discourage or prevent drug offending.
Drug use can lead to significant financial, psychological, physical health and social consequences for family members. Despite this, previous economic assessments of drug use interventions have not included the costs and benefits to family members of treatment for the drug user.
Knowledge about drug suppliers, including traffickers, is slim. This stymies our capacity to understand, foresee and forewarn what Australian and international drug traffickers will do and what policy responses are likely to be most effective.
This project explores the characteristics of methamphetamine users entering treatment in therapeutic communities, and assesses the effectiveness of a specialist amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) intervention in therapeutic communities.
Childhood physical abuse is common amongst drug users. This body of work examines the extent and nature of childhood physical abuse amongst regular drug users, and its relationship to later drug use and violence.
This project involves the development of a resource for the identification, management and, if appropriate, referral of women who are pregnant and have a substance misuse problem.
This study will shed light on how policy gets formed by police, and what influences the policy formulation process.
The Drugs and New Technologies (DNeT) project aims to investigate drug marketplaces online and in other emerging technologies. It aims to assess and quantify the online availability of drugs, including both traditional and new psychoactive substances.
This project examines the non-medical use of prescription stimulant drugs among Australian university students for cognitive enhancement purposes. It will, for the first time in Australia, comprehensively examine attitudes, prevalence, motivations, and patterns and consequences of use.
NIDIP was established in the recognition that there was a greater need for the regular dissemination of trends in the epidemiology of drug-related harms in Australia.
