How often do users know what's in their drugs? How often do they know where drugs are made or by whom? Some groups offer to "test" drugs at raves for you in the United Kingdom but the idea has not been welcomed in Australia because it "sends a bad message". From my experience that is a sensible harm reduction measure and could have saved Georgina's life. It's naive to think that our children can always deny the forces of the black market. The anonymity of the "black market" drug economy means that potentially lethal substances are sold on our streets every day - this is the real cost of misuse. Alcohol causes many injuries and deaths every year and costs the Australian community billions of dollars – twice as much as the social cost of illicit drug use. Australia's young adults, elderly and Indigenous people are considered the "at risk" populations more likely to be affected by the negative effects of alcohol.

The only thing that compares to the social costs of alcohol is the billions spent each year on illicit drugs. According to The Age, Australians spend $7 billion a year "splurging" on illicit drugs; a figure that dwarfs the amount of money spent on assisting those with drug dependencies or fighting the drug endemic. In an online report, illicit drug trade researcher Dr John Jiggens examines the size and value of Australia's drug market. He estimates about 3 million Australians buy illicit drugs and that our drug market is worth about $17 billion. Alcohol and drug use can be summed up easily in monetary figures. Drug-related deaths increased by 79 per cent from 1979-1999 according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures. Of the near 2000 deaths caused by drugs in 1999, 81 per cent were accidental, 16 per cent were suicides and 3 per cent were undetermined. What we can conclude from all of this is that the argument that some substances are more dangerous than others is nonsense.



In a way, it doesn't matter what drug Georgina died from - whether it was LSD, ecstasy or amphetamines. It's the mystery of how they're produced which is the problem, and the environments in which they are consumed. People these days are at risk of laced or dangerously mixed substances, and society's attitude to drive substance misuse underground makes these risks so much higher. On top of this a person's environment – how safe they feel, or conversely how pressured – affects consumption. Once we realise these facts it becomes easier to see how we increase the harms of drug and alcohol use, particularly among young people: when we criminalise that behaviour, when we spend more money on law enforcement than on treatment and counselling and when we fail to communicate with our young people in a meaningful way. So why can't we just reverse all of this? It's easier said than done. But by being informed about the complexities of our drug laws, in being informed about how to communicate with our children about drugs and telling politicians that we do not want to see our children end up in jail - those three things can make a big difference. All of our work at the Street Universities is about exactly that - making the allure of drugs pale in comparison to a fulfilling life. But if a young person has already developed drug dependency, then our treatment centres is the next safety net underneath.

So how did Georgina slip through the safety net? If there had been a way she could have "tested" her pill before using it there may have been a different outcome. I believe it was our ineffective drug laws that failed her. Matt Noffs is the co-founder of Street University and is CEO of the Noffs Foundation. * Fairfax Media is once again supporting the Global Drug Survey, the largest survey of drug use patterns in the world.

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