History, not harm, dictates why some drugs are legal and others aren’t

Nicole Lee, Curtin University and Jarryd Bartle, RMIT University look at the legal history of a number of illicit drugs Drug-related offences take up a lot of the resources within Australia’s criminal justice system. In 2016–17 law enforcement made 113,533 illicit drug seizures and 154,650 drug-related arrests. Harm-reduction advocates are calling for the legalisation of some