SCHEME REDUCES DRUG USE- SA. ATTORNEY-GENERAL

An innovative scheme diverting drug users to education, assessment and treatment, instead of going directly to court, is helping change lives, according to the State's Attorney General..

Michael Atkinson revealed last week that the results of a preliminary evaluation of the Police Drug Diversion Initiative that has been operating in South Australia for more than three and a half years.

Mr Atkinson said that“4,597 drug users have been diverted to the program, 60 per cent of them youths, and I’m told that 80 per cent of people comply with the program on their first diversion." ading that “Results show that, after the diversion, participants are less likely to face a drug charge as the major charge resulting from any criminal conduct".

“The people diverted to this scheme mostly suggest they would return to the health agency that they attended if they needed help in future. They also frequently indicated that they’d been able to get accurate information about the effects of drugs that they hadn’t known before." he said.

“Even more importantly, the participants interviewed reported improvements in at least one area of their lives, such as health, relationships or emotional wellbeing, and there is some evidence that their level of drug use decreased.”

Media release here