About this Event
RMIT’s HASH network presents
“Festivals, nightclubs, injecting rooms… churches? Thinking about drug checking outside the box”
Professor Fiona Measham, University of Liverpool (and Visiting Professor at RMIT)
When? Thursday 23 January 2020, 4-5pm
Where? RMIT’s Kaleide Theatre. Lower level, Building 8, 360 Swanston Street, Melbourne.
Format? 45 minute talk followed by 15 minute Q&A. Option to continue the discussion at the Oxford Scholar from 5pm.
Hosted by: RMIT’s HASH Network.
Co-hosted by: RMIT’s Social and Global Studies Centre and the Victorian Substance Use Research Forum (VSURF).
Register for this event here.
Fiona will discuss drug checking, harm reduction, and 7 years of developments in the Loop, at the interface of her academic research, service provision and policy advisory role. She will consider how a complex, pluralistic and yet increasingly integrated system of public and private testing, alerts and early warning systems, has evolved in Europe in a wide range of locations and against a backdrop of diverse drug policy contexts. As testing for harm reduction beds in around the world, Fiona will consider key issues of design, delivery and evaluation and ask where, when and how testing services should operate.
Professor Fiona Measham is Chair in Criminology at the University of Liverpool. Fiona has conducted research across three decades exploring changing trends in drugs; their regulation and policing; and festivals, night life and the socio-cultural context to intoxication. Her service on scientific advisory committees includes the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs 2008-18; the Ministerial Review of New Psychoactive Substances; Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative Party drug policy expert panels; and as a permanent member of DrugScience. Fiona is co-founder and co-director of the Loop (2013-) and the Loop Australia (2018-), non profit harm reduction NGOs providing drug checking services in festival and the UK Festival Association.