Leading drug reform campaigner Dr. Alex Wodak is calling for “proper regulation” of drugs like MDMA and cannabis.
He and other radical campaigners believe Australians need to have a real conversation about how drugs should be regulated. Dr. Wodak says the regulation of MDMA, down to the manufacturing and distribution, could eliminate impurities and reduce potential risks, including overdose.
He advocates for pill testing, legalized cannabis, and wants MDMA to be sold by pharmacies. His sole purpose for fighting for these changes: “harm minimization.”
Using cannabis as an example, he references how the substance used to be illegal everywhere and is now being slowly introduced to regulation across the world. Like any other medicine, Wodak thinks taking MDMA would become a safer practice if people were educated and offered proper doses.
“MDMA was used as a medicine previously and would have gone through this process at that time, so it wouldn’t be the introduction of a system, it would be a reintroduction of a previous system,” Wodak explains.
Of course, this wouldn’t eliminate all the risks associated with MDMA.
“You can’t prevent deaths completely,” Wodak says. “But if you reduce them a lot then that’s well worthwhile.”
Australia has experienced a recent outbreak of overdoses and even deaths as music festival attendees turn to unregulated drugs like MDMA. Over this past weekend, there were at least 30 overdoses reported and one man was put on life support following a series of events.
There are advocates strongly for and perhaps even more strongly against Dr. Wodak’s proposal. One parent who lost his daughter to an ecstasy overdose in 1995 was quoted saying, “Selling ecstasy over the counter is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”
Premier Gladys Berejiklian says Dr. Wodak’s message won’t be tolerated in schools.
Whether regulation and pill testing is the solution or not, there’s still a long way to go.
Source: Daily Mail