Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Heroin

  • AUSTRALIA

    Addiction is about social exclusion not moral failing

    • Paul Jensen
    • 21 July 2015
    11 Comments

    Greens leader Richard di Natale is currently visiting Portugal for a first hand look at how they have successfully bypassed the criminal justice system in treating drug addiction. There’s increasing acceptance of the view that addiction is caused by a lack of social connection and bonding. For Portugal, the most crucial step was to provide addicts with secure housing and subsidised jobs so they had a purpose in life and a sense of responsibility.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Drug mule's poo strike stymies bad cops

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 11 December 2014

    During an end-of-season trip to Bangkok, impressionable country footy dork Ray is badgered by one of his teammates into turning drug mule. He is picked up in Melbourne, where a couple of nasty cops detain him under supervision for seven days, waiting for him to pass the heroin-filled balloons he ingested. Ray is beset on all sides by systemic corruption, which makes his refusal to poo — fuelled not by greed but by a kind of everyman nobility — seem truly heroic.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Abused girls' institution trauma

    • Madeleine Hamilton
    • 05 August 2013
    20 Comments

    Unlike their male counterparts, 'delinquent' girls who ran away from dangerous environments were frequently incarcerated because it was perceived that they might be sexually active and fall pregnant. Their stories demonstrate the wide-ranging effects of ruptured family life and subsequent institutionalisation, and warn against the future unnecessary incarceration of vulnerable youth.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Exploiting Van Nguyen

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 25 July 2013
    7 Comments

    Many Australians feel ownership of Nguyen's story, who was executed for drug trafficking in Singapore in 2005. Khoa Do more than most Australian filmmakers has the moral authority to tell that story without being accused of exploitation. Yet it is hard not to sympathise with the objections of Nguyen's family to Do's SBS new miniseries. Which mother would want public property made of her private grief?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The dubious removal of Paraguay's former bishop president

    • Rodrigo Acuña
    • 03 July 2012
    6 Comments

    The recent ouster of Paraguay’s left-wing president Fernando Lugo probably broke some type of world record. Having had just two hours to prepare his defence, the leader who was once 'Bishop of the poor' described his impeachment as a 'parliamentary coup d’état'. He had a point.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Shocking scenes from a teen pregnancy

    • Madeleine Hamilton
    • 16 December 2011
    23 Comments

    When she had her first baby at 18, her neighbour asked if she was trying to make a buck from the baby bonus. Given the liberalisation of abortion laws, pregnant teens are accused of deliberately ruining their lives or ripping off the public purse if they choose to continue their pregnancies.

    READ MORE
  • MEDIA

    Loving addicts like Charlie Sheen

    • Jen Vuk
    • 08 March 2011
    9 Comments

    I sat glued to US actor Charlie Sheen's fall from grace, which came to a head yesterday with his sacking from high-rating sitcom Two and A Half Men. The drama played out by his family, more so than the actor's meltdown, brought back a painful episode from my own past.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Keith Richards' other church

    • Philip Harvey
    • 08 December 2010

    'When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully — the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you,' writes Richards. Librarians know better than anyone that the library attracts the most unlikely clientele.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Brian's story

    • Tony Vinson
    • 25 October 2010
    4 Comments

    My mother never really coped while I was growing up. My dad died when I was seven and she had a nervous breakdown. My sister got murdered when I was about 15. She had just turned 18. That's when my life rolled out of control. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's feminist saint

    • Michael Mullins
    • 11 October 2010
    5 Comments

    Sexual abuse was part of the mix of challenges facing Mary MacKillop and her sisters, but it was only one of many elements of disfunction within the Church and society of the time. Historian Father Ed Campion has described MacKillop as 'a heroine to modern Australian feminists'.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Tasmanian Greens and the terror of coalitions

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 23 March 2010
    6 Comments

    The Greens are arguably the true winners of Saturday's inconclusive Tasmanian state election. The Rudd Government should be worried. An arrangement with the Greens may be unavoidable should Labor wish to retain power.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2009: Empathy for paedophiles is not sympathy for the devil

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 January 2010
    4 Comments

    A bill passed hastily by the NSW Parliament last week, specifically to force released paedophile Dennis Ferguson out of his home, effectively enshrined hate in legislation. Like drug addiction, paedophilia is a problem that requires community empathy, rather than ostracism. September 2009

    READ MORE