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Desmond Manderson will be in conversation with Malcolm McLeod, Anna Olsen and Carolyn Strange on his new book High Time: How Australia Changed Its Mind About Illegal Drugs, a unique look at Australia's treatment of illegal drugs from the 1980s to the present.

How did the nation change its mind about drugs? Australia's repressive treatment of illicit drugs began with racist anti-Chinese laws around 1900. Until the mid-1980s, prohibition seemed absolute and unalterable, supported by local police forces, state and federal agencies and international law.

This book tells the surprising story of what happened next: the turn to a 'harm minimisation' approach. Compelled by the AIDS crisis and medical professionals agitating for change, Australian governments began to consider whether thousands of lives could be saved – not by preventing the use of drugs, but by reducing the risks associated with their use. Along the way, what began as a pragmatic response to a health crisis morphed into something more: a moral argument for compassion and respect.

Examining such controversial issues as pill testing, injecting rooms, medicinal cannabis, the opioid crisis, and vaping , High Time traces the efforts, often faltering and provisional, to forge a new path forward. Written with clarity and elegance by one of Australia's leading authorities on drug policy and history, it presents the story of Australian drug law as one that remains unfinished but is moving in a hopeful direction.

'A magisterial overview of the recent history of drug policy in Australia and a razor-sharp indictment of prohibition as an immensely counterproductive failure' —Dr. Alex Wodak AM

Professor Desmond Manderson FRSC, FAAL, FASSA is jointly appointed in the Colleges of Law and of Arts & Social Sciences at the ANU, where he directs the Network for Law, Arts and the Humanities.

Professor Malcolm McLeod FRACI, CChem, CF, Research School of Chemistry ANU, is the chemistry lead of the CanTEST Health and Drug Checking service in central Canberra with research interests in the identification and analysis of new psychoactive substances.

The current research interestsof Dr Anna Olsen, Associate Professor of Social Foundations of Medicine , ANU School of Medicine and Psychology, include pill testing; opioid overdose prevention; methamphetamine use; drug use and motherhood; and ethical practice in social research.

The current research interests of ANU Emeritus Professor Carolyn Strange FASSA, FAHA include the history of crime and justice and the history of gender, sexuality and medicine. Her most recent book, published in 2025, is Fatal Confession: A Girl's Murder, a Man's Execution and the Fitton case.
 

Books will be available for signing from 5.30pm and again after the event.

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A podcast will be made available after the event.

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