News Story

Once the details had come in, the Drug Policy Modelling Program (DPMP) at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre crunched the numbers.

The DPMP, which is part of the Faculty of Medicine, is interested in illicit drug use – and is the only place in the world that is undertaking work in drug policy using
modelling as a research tool.

The team calculated that the seizure could represent almost half of the annual consumption of ecstasy in Australia, if we take the consumption to be 31.5 million tablets.

But the DPMP research contextualises a rather more complicated picture.

“We need to think about factors such as whether the alleged syndicate had previously been importing, because if it was a new endeavour, it would not impact on the market,” says the Program Director, Associate Professor Alison Ritter.

“We would also need to know other things such as how much ecstasy was already stockpiled in Australia, because if there are large stockpiles, it is likely that there would
be a long lag between the seizure and the user-market impact.”

The DPMP incorporates the work of mathematicians, computer modellers, economists, health experts and psychologists in building the models, which are used to
test different policy options.

“There is a gap between the published scientific literature and the way that it is accessed by policy makers,” says Michael Lodge, a Senior Research Policy Officer with
the DPMP. “Very few of them go to the scientific literature as the first port of call. We hope to bridge that gap.”

Work in the program spans three areas: generating new research evidence; translating evidence into information of use to decision makers; and studying policy making. In generating new research evidence, for example, DPMP found that one dependent amphetamine user costs the community $44,665 pa – significantly more than a non-dependent amphetamine user ($926 pa).

In striving to understand policy processes the DPMP teams found that current Australian public opinion is favourable towards pragmatic harm reduction responses but most Australians do not approve of illicit drug use.

DPMP is led by NDARC, UNSW in partnership with the ANU, Griffith University, the Burnet Institute and HEMA Consulting.

Media Contact: Susi Hamilton | 0422 934 024 | | UniKen Issue 49, p18