Abstract
Australia does not have a formal drug early warning system. A coordinated program of fixed or event-based drug-checking is expensive and provides harm reduction information to atargeted user group. The South Australian Drug Early Warning System (SADEWS) is an informal inter-agency collaboration which rapidly and confidentially exchanges contemporary,evidence-based information about drug seizures, usage trends and clinical outcomes associated with drug use in South Australia. Information is sourced from policing, forensic analysis,waste-water analysis, medical research, clinical data and directly from people using drugs. SADEWS exchanges information relating to new drug emergences and clusters of adverseoutcomes following drug use, amongst members via secure digital platforms. The diverse but complimentary expertise of members allows a comprehensive assessment of changes tothe baseline risk associated with drug use and, where a potential community harm is identified, enables the timely delivery of warnings through formal mechanisms existing withinmember agencies. It is expected that these warnings contribute to significantly reduced medical consequences associated with community drug use through decreased drug overdosefatalities and hospital presentations rates, contributing to reduced healthcare costs. Importantly, this drug early warning system is politically risk-free, is achieved simply and without external funding or significant administrative overheads.
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Acknowledgements
SADEWS is an unfunded entity but would not operate without in-kind support from the participating agencies.
Funding
Emergency Department Admission Blood Psychoactive Testing (EDABPT) was supported by research funding from the National Centre for Clinical Research on Emerging Drugs (NCREDD), as well as in-kind and financial support from FSSA. The National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program (NWDMP) is an Australian Government initiative and funding to the University of South Australia is provided through the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Andrew Camilleri and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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The Emergency Department Admission Blood Psychoactive Testing (EDABPT) was granted ethics approval by the RAH Research Ethics Committee - HREC/17/RAH/439 R20171015).
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Camilleri, A., Alfred, S., Gerber, C. et al. Delivering harm reduction to the community and frontline medical practitioners through the South Australian Drug Early Warning System (SADEWS). Forensic Sci Med Pathol 17, 388–394 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-021-00381-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-021-00381-1