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Drug Use Monitoring in Australia: a project overview
Toni Makkai, Kiah McGregor and Zhigang Wei
Published in:
Platypus Magazine
ISSN 0159-1606
no. 78, March 2003
Canberra: Australian Federal Police
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Abstract
Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA), an ongoing project run by the Australian Institute of Criminology, involves interviewing people recently detained by police at seven different sites around Australia, asking them to provide a urine specimen, and analysing patterns of recent drug use based on this information. This article describes the methodology used by DUMA and examines some of the results relating to the impact of the heroin drought on the use of heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine; the impact of the heroin drought on patterns of drug purchasing; and the relationship between current and previous offending and recent illicit drug use. The article also discusses the findings of a recent specific study of drug driving, and considers how DUMA data can help law enforcement agencies in the ongoing war on drugs.