Drugs, Young People and the Law

An easy-to-use manual about drug laws and legal processes -Arabic, Spanish and Chinese versions are available here.

Drugs, Young People and the Law answers parents' and young people's questions about drug laws and legal processes as they apply to young people.

The development of the manual was an initiative of the Fairfield Community Drug Action Team (CDAT). It was funded and assisted by the Law Foundation of NSW, Drug Programs Coordination Unit of the NSW Police Service, Burnside Cabramatta and Fairfield Health Services.

The resource has also been translated into 6 community languages - Vietnamese, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Laotian and Khmer.

Hard copies of the resource can be obtained by contacting the Project Manager of this region.

Copies of the resource in Arabic, Chinese and Spanish are available below.

The English version of the manual is available on this site.

Some updates have been made to the English version and the hard-copy versions since translating. Please note, that these updates are not included in the language versions attached below.

The updates relate to details in the Directory of Services chapter (eg. phone numbers, addresses, hours of opening). They also include information on sniffer dogs under the chapter on searches.

Searches using sniffer dogs

New laws now regulate the police use of specially trained sniffer dogs to detect drugs that people are carrying. Generally the police will have to get a warrant to use a sniffer dog to search for drugs in a public place. However, there are some public places, such as certain railway stations and trains on certain routes, where police can use the dogs to search for drugs without a warrant.

The dogs will not harm you. They are trained to smell certain types of illegal drugs that people may be carrying or hiding. The police will take care not to let the dogs touch a person. If the dogs do detect drugs on someone, the police dog handler will have the power to search you for illegal drugs.

Opening attached files

To open the files below, you will need Acrobat Reader. If you don't have this program you can download it from here.

These are freely available to download and distribute. However, the law is constantly changing and it is recommended that the currency of information is checked.

The Chinese version is a very large file. It may take 5 to 10 minutes to open this. Please be patient.