Drugs and public health. Australian perspectives on policy and practice. David Moore, Paul Dietze, editors. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2008 (xxi + 249 pp). ISBN 978 0 19 556102 9.

Public health approaches to drug use attempt to reduce the aggregate adverse impact that drug use has on the health of populations through policies that reduce the availability of drugs, increase their price, reduce the prevalence of unsafe patterns of use, and screen and intervene with drug users who are experiencing harm or using drugs in ways that put their health at risk.

This book provides a good sample of the work of leading Australian practitioners and researchers working on drug use from a public health perspective. The editors provide a useful historical overview of Australian drug policy over the past 30 years. A series of chapters then outline the challenges in “engaging the community” in formulating policies towards alcohol-related harm, party drug use, volatile substances misuse, alcohol problems in the workplace, and primary health care for inner-city drug users. Chapters on treatment themes cover problem methamphetamine users, harm reduction for smokers who won’t quit, opioid-substitution treatment for heroin-dependent people, policies that divert illicit drug offenders from the criminal justice system into treatment, special issues in dealing with drug use among young people, and alcohol and drug problems in people with serious mental illnesses. Under the theme of “evolving practice” are chapters that discuss peer-based outreach for marginalised drug users, community development, and medically supervised injecting centres. The concluding two chapters discuss the translation of research into policy and working with the media in dealing with drug issues.

This book is well timed, with a change of federal government providing the opportunity to rejuvenate the public health approach to all drugs — legal and illegal — that the Howard Government sought to replace with a National Illicit Drugs Policy that was “tough on (some) drugs”.