Established in 1999, the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) program is funded by the Australian Government and is the nation’s longest-running ongoing survey of police detainees across the country. DUMA collects alcohol and drug use and criminal justice information from police detainees at watch houses and police stations across Australia. Assessing the drug use and offending habits of detainees is valuable in the formulation of policy and programs as this population is more likely than the general community or incarcerated offenders to have had recent and close contact with the illicit drug market. The DUMA program also provides a more accurate representation of the extent and nature of drug use in Australia compared with drug arrest and seizure data.
DUMA comprises two core components: a self-report survey on drug use, criminal justice history and demographic information; and voluntary urinalysis, which provides an objective measure for corroborating reported recent drug use.