Your Stories

David’s story

Sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like to be young now that I’m in my fifties. I used to smoke a lot of cannabis in my youth and occasionally take other mind altering substances such as Ecstasy (or at least what I hoped was Ecstasy) and rarely some other drugs. I wanted to experiment with my friends. Read More

Maya’s story

A few years ago I left a very abusive long-term relationship. I fell in with people who were using pills, and as an extremely unhealthy way of dealing with everything at the time I ended up using regularly. I learnt there are different strengths of pills, some had slightly worse impacts on my overall physical feelings than others, and I built up such a strong tolerance that I ended up telling others what they would and would not be able to handle. Stronger ones weren’t to be had by someone who just wanted to try them. My mental health and situation led to my intentional overdose on MDMA pills. Read More

Graham’s story

Many years ago now – when I wore a younger man’s clothes – I had a good mate who was gaoled for cannabis offences. We talked openly about a lot of stuff and so I believe him when he told me he had not used any illicit drugs regularly other than cannabis and magic mushrooms on a couple of occasions. Read More

Dante’s story

The campaign of “Just say no” has not worked for the last 5 decades. The idea that it is a criminal issue has not worked at lowering usage levels. It’s time to try something that has been proven to work. Make it a medical issue and fund real education programs that empower people to get help. Read More

Kathy’s story

Today my son tried to take his own life. He is suffering mental health issues and drug addiction. He has now hit rock bottom. He tells me he feels he is just a dirty drug user, shamed and judged, tied of the battle, no hope. Read More

Pat’s story

At the level of government policy and people who have these overblown fears about addiction, they don’t actually give the users enough credit for knowing a lot about drugs. They also know a lot about harm and they have a lot of good ideas. In fact, many have fuelled our best harm reduction initiatives. Read More

Tao’s story

I have a chronic pain condition. I have back pain most days. Sometimes it can be severe, for weeks at a time. I have used cannabis in countries where it’s legal for pain relief. It was very helpful. I just wish I could use it here in Australia.

– Name has been changed. Read More

Wayne’s story

As I look at the current scene, obviously cannabis legalisation is fascinating here in Canada. All the speculation will hopefully be overcome by factual evidence year by year as that happens. I’m suspecting that it’s going to be no big whoop in a certain sense that we already have our population of users and that might increase a bit, but it’s probably got a certain scope to it. Read More

John’s story

I have a view and it’s my abiding wish to see people with addictions provide us with a portal into human nature, because I think that addictions are an aspect of normality that has gone awry. And at certain times in our history as a species it goes especially awry and causes great damage, and was never more dangerous in history than it is now. So, those people who self-identify as having serious addictions can provide us with a portal into this nature; a lens not into how bad and what suffering their use of drugs has caused them, but to how they recover. Read More

Alex’s story

I work for an organisation who support young people in their transition through “adulthood”.

Recently, a young person, age 13, who was attending our program for the second time only was caught with a couple small bags of marijuana. Because of Department of Education policies I had to report the matter to the Police. I knew little to nothing about this kid’s well-being, mental health and family relationships. He is not coming back to our program because of this.

I really hope the intervention from the police will cause more good then harm..

– Name has been changed. Read More