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The Turning Point report reveals something crucial about drug driving behaviour: people describe it not as aberrant, but as embedded in everyday routines (work, socialising, stress management). This apparent ordinariness, however, must be understood within a broader policy environment where harm reduction has been promoted in relative isolation from robust prevention and supply reduction. The unintended consequence is a perception that ongoing drug use is expected and manageable rather than something to be actively reduced. In this context, drug driving becomes a predictable outcome of a culture where drug use is framed as a given, and where policy energy focuses on managing risk instead of changing behaviour.
Harm Reduction in a Lopsided System
Harm reduction has an important place in public health. But when it dominates both narrative and resourcing at the expense of prevention and supply control, it can hollow out efforts to reduce initiation, frequency and intensity of drug use. Over the past decade, much public messaging has concentrated on safer use, overdose response and stigma reduction. Comparatively little has aimed to prevent uptake, delay use or actively support abstinence-oriented and reduction-focused goals (particularly in relation to driving).
The result, reflected in the experiences documented in the report, is telling: many individuals receive repeated signals about how to “be safer” while using, but almost no structured support or expectation to stop using before driving, or to address the underlying use itself.
The Missing Pillars: Supply Reduction, Prevention, Diversion
The Turning Point report highlights an enforcement-heavy roadside testing regime with minimal systematic prevention or therapeutic diversion. To correct this imbalance, drug policy around driving needs a deliberate triangulation of three pillars:
Supply Reduction Strong, targeted policing of trafficking and dealing, regulation of pharmaceutical prescribing, and disruption of local drug markets can reduce availability and convenience, making impulsive or routine drug use before driving less likely.
Prevention Evidence-based, developmentally appropriate prevention across schools, workplaces, families and communities is essential to delay initiation, reduce use and reshape expectations about combining drugs and driving. Prevention here means more than information: it encompasses skill-building, alternative activities, and structural supports that make non-use (or reduced use) realistic and attractive.
Diversion (Not Decriminalisation) When people are detected drug driving, responses should prioritise diversion into assessment, education and treatment rather than simply fines and disqualification, but without sending a message that drug use is consequence-free or socially accepted. Diversion is distinct from broad decriminalisation. It retains a clear legal boundary around drug use and driving, while using that boundary as an entry point to structured behaviour change.
By contrast, moves toward de facto normalisation or blanket decriminalisation, in the absence of strong supply control and prevention, risk further embedding drug use as a “new normal” (undermining public messaging around road safety and personal responsibility).
Consequences of Neglecting Prevention and Behaviour Change
The experiences captured in the report show how the neglect of prevention and behaviour change plays out on the ground:
- People report surprise at being detected, revealing that they have not internalised clear, consistent messages that any drug use before driving is unacceptable and risky.
- Many have long-standing patterns of drug use linked to mental health, work conditions or social networks, yet have never been offered sustained, structured help to reduce or exit those patterns.
- Contact points that could trigger change (police stops, courts, health services) rarely connect individuals to credible, evidence-based programs focused on abstinence from driving after drug use, and on broader behaviour change.
In effect, policy and practice communicate that the system will test and punish, and occasionally help people use more safely, but will not consistently invest in helping them use less (or not at all) in relation to driving.
Reframing Drug Driving as a Prevention Priority
To respond to the report’s findings, drug driving must be reframed as a central prevention priority rather than a niche enforcement issue or a side effect of broader harm reduction work. This reframing implies:
Public campaigns that explicitly challenge the idea that drug use is a normal, expected aspect of life, and that clearly condemn any drug use before driving as socially and morally unacceptable, not just technically illegal.
Integration of road-safety messaging into AOD and mental health services, with practitioners trained and resourced to work toward behaviour change (not only “safer” use) around driving.
Policy commitments that tie funding and performance measures to reductions in drug use prevalence, frequency and related driving, not solely to service throughput or distribution of harm reduction materials.
In this model, harm reduction retains a role but is embedded within a broader framework that:
- Limits supply
- Strengthens prevention
- Uses legal boundaries to drive diversion into change-focused support
- Resists narratives that present drug use (and by extension drug driving) as inevitable
Conclusion
The lived experiences in the Turning Point report sit within a decade of harm reduction-led messaging and weak prevention. The current patterns of drug driving are not accidental but are, in part, the predictable consequence of policy choices. Rebalancing toward supply reduction, robust prevention and meaningful diversion (while rejecting decriminalisation and cultural normalisation) offers a clearer path to genuine reductions in both drug use and drug driving-related harm.
(Source: WRD News)
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Journal of Drug Policy & Practice Vol-1-Issue-2.pdf
One of the most difficult subjects to understand and assess in the drug policy and practice field is harm reduction because of disputes about its intent and meaning. Issues 2, 3 and 4 will address the subject in depth with special attention to the history of the concept in a three part series. The Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice, a joint effort of the Institute on Global Drug Policy and the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse is an international, open access, peer-reviewed, online journal with the goal of bridging the information gap on drug policy issues between the medical/scientific community, policy makers and the concerned lay public.
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“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.”
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Key Takeaways
- Broad temporal and population spectrum on cannabis use & mental health.
- Cannabis linked to depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies in studies.
- Early cannabis use in youth leads to mental health issues in adulthood.
- Systematic review and meta-analysis updates cannabis mental health risks evidence.
Abstract: Cannabis is the most widely consumed illicit drug globally. In 2021, 46 % of countries identified cannabis as the predominant substance associated with drug abuse disorders, with 34 % indicating it as the primary cause for seeking treatment. Young individuals represent the largest consumer demographic, experiencing substantial negative health effects. Despite extensive research on its mental health impacts, many aspects remain unclear. This study examines cannabis use among young people including anxiety, depression, and suicidal behavior. Studies involving individuals aged 15–30 were included. Data sources included PubMed, Mendeley, Embase, WOS, CINAHL, and Scopus. After screening 6466 articles, 36 met the inclusion criteria, with 18 included in the meta-analysis. These studies were published between 2013 and 2025. The results indicated that the odds of depression were 51 % higher in young cannabis users (OR = 1.51, 95 %CI = 1.23–1.86), decreasing to 28 % after adjustment (aOR = 1.28, 95 %CI = 1.10–1.50). Anxiety showed a 58 % increase (OR = 1.58, 95 %CI = 1.15–2.15). For suicidal ideation, the increase ranged from 50 % in unadjusted models (OR = 1.50, 95 %CI = 1.05–2.14) to 65 % in adjusted models (aOR = 1.65 95 %CI = 1.40–1.93). Finally, the odds of suicide attempt were 87 % higher (OR = 1.87, 95 %CI = 1.25–2.80), remaining elevated at 80 % after adjustment (aOR = 1.80, 95 %CI = 1.30–2.49).
(Complete Research - Source: Science Direct )
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In a courtroom in Oregon City, Ron Ross moves with purpose and compassion. He greets each person with a fist bump or a hug, hands out his cell phone number freely, and tells people facing their darkest moments: “I got you. I believe in you.”
This courtroom behavior stands out from the norm. Ross brings a different perspective as a recovery mentor, someone who has walked the same difficult path as those he now helps and emerged on the other side with something precious to offer: hope born from experience.
A New Approach to an Old Problem
When Oregon’s Legislature reversed course on drug decriminalization last year, making minor drug possession a misdemeanor again, it allocated over $20 million to create deflection programs. These innovative approaches guide people away from jail and toward housing and treatment rather than simply reverting to the old system of punishment.
Clackamas County’s program represents one of the most promising models emerging from this shift. The specialty court focuses on redirecting people struggling with addiction into support services rather than incarceration. At the heart of this program are people like Ross: peers who have lived through addiction and recovery themselves.
The results speak for themselves. According to Deputy District Attorney Bill Stewart, recovery mentors like Ross have proven “absolutely critical” to the program’s success, far exceeding initial expectations.
The Power of Lived Experience
Ross knows the chaos of addiction intimately. His own story includes a litany of consequences from alcohol abuse: police encounters, DUI arrests, wrecked cars, assaults, broken relationships, and lost jobs. He moved from Connecticut to Oregon in 2014, hoping distance would help him escape his addiction. The hope alone wasn’t enough at first.
But on August 29, 2016—a date he calls his “clean date”—something shifted. With the support of other peers in recovery, Ross found his way out of alcoholism. Now, nearly a decade later, he channels that transformation into helping others find their own path.
Tony Vezina, executive director of 4D Recovery who mentored Ross during his own recovery, describes Ross as possessing something rare and unteachable. “He has that special X factor, where he naturally can just engage people, make them feel supported, inspire them to change, and then he’s able to just get people into all these services so quickly.”
How the Program Works
Ross’s role extends beyond traditional peer support. As a program navigator for OneLove, a nonprofit serving people experiencing homelessness, he acts as a bridge between the court system and treatment services. While court is in session, he circulates among participants, triaging needs, making phone calls, and tapping into his extensive network across the Portland area to find housing, treatment slots, and ongoing support.
The county’s investment of roughly $261,000 in contract funding with OneLove represents about 60% spending on actual treatment and housing, with the remainder going to administration and training. For that investment, they get someone who understands both the system and the struggle.
When Calvin Harding, a 26-year-old battling opiate addiction, landed back in court on new drug possession charges, Ross greeted him with a hug rather than judgment. Harding credits Ross with always having his back: “Anytime I ever ask him for help, no matter what shape I’m in, he never judges me for being on drugs. He always answers the phone.”
An Emerging Workforce
Ross is part of a growing movement. Oregon now has approximately 4,000 state-certified recovery mentors, each required to complete 40 hours of training and maintain at least two years of recovery. These positions represent both a support system and a career pathway for people in long-term recovery.
Janie Gullickson, executive director of The Peer Company (one of the Portland area’s largest organizations providing peer support), sees these navigator roles as an important evolution. She notes that while the position differs from traditional peer support due to its reporting requirements to the court, it demonstrates how lived experience with addiction can inform a wide variety of professional roles.
The Peer Company exemplifies this potential. Most of its workforce consists of people in long-term recovery, including Gullickson herself. She points to peers who have gone on to medical school, carrying their peer support experience into new professional contexts.
The Philosophy of Hope
Ross’s approach is built on an unwavering belief in human potential. No matter how many times someone relapses or fails to show up, he maintains hope. His philosophy is simple but profound: “There’s a light that’s in everybody. Sometimes we dim that light with just the nonsense that we put ourselves through, and sometimes it just takes the work of the individual and somebody else who cares to clean that light up so they can shine again.”
This isn’t naive optimism. It’s faith grounded in personal experience. Ross describes his former self as “a lost cause,” someone people gave up on. He knows what it means to be on the receiving end of judgment versus compassion—and he’s chosen to offer the latter.
In practical terms, this means asking questions that matter: “Is Oregon City dangerous for you? Can you stay sober there?” It means understanding that returning to old neighborhoods might trigger relapse. It means telling people, “If there’s any time you feel like you want to use, you’re getting squirrely, you need help with something, just reach out to me”—and actually answering when they call.
A Model for the Future
As counties across Oregon implement their deflection programs, models vary widely. Multnomah County operates entirely outside the court system, with police able to take people to a standalone center for screening and voluntary services. Clackamas County’s hybrid approach combines specialty court with community-based support and offers another path forward.
What’s becoming clear is that peer support serves as essential infrastructure for these programs. People facing addiction need more than services; they need someone who understands the journey, who has walked through the fire and emerged with wisdom to share.
The traditional justice system often treats addiction as a moral failing requiring punishment. Programs like Clackamas County’s specialty court, powered by recovery mentors like Ross, recognize addiction as a human struggle requiring compassion, support, and genuine belief in people’s capacity to change.
(Source: WRD News)
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