Encrypted messaging apps like Telegram promise a lot when it comes to secrecy, so they're popular for buying and selling drugs. But how do they really stack up?

Users News provides an update on how NUAA is helping to eliminate hepatitis C in Australia.

Trippy edibles are rising in popularity. Users News gives the lowdown on legal and illegal plant-based highs and the dangers of sourcing these treats from online sellers.

Users News publishes something different: a poem from a NUAA community member.

Users News investigates police responses to mental health emergencies and the possibilities and realities of alternative first responders. This is a deep dive into the options available to you in a time of severe mental distress and why police may not always be the best people for this job.

Drug harm reduction advocates claim the NSW government is ignoring an unfolding drug crisis. What does this all mean?

August 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD), the world’s largest annual campaign to end accidental overdose.  This year’s theme is ‘Together We Can’.  Against this sentiment of hope and togetherness, the title for ACON’s IAOD event ‘Stories from the Underworld’ seems rather mysterious.  

Since the beginning of April, staff from The Loop Australia have a run a drug checking trial at the Uniting Medically-Supervised Injecting Centre in Kings Cross for service users there. To get an overview of the service on offer, who can participate and why this ground-breaking trial is important, Users News has chatted to Dr Robert Page.

Users News dives into Australia’s new vape laws and what they mean for the cloud puffers out there.

2C-B and ‘tusi’ are on the rise here in Australia but confusion persists about the substances. Users News has taken a deep dive to find out what’s fact and what’s not.

Prison and health experts including NUAA have raised concerns over the safety of Australian inmates following a rise in local detections of nitazenes, an extremely strong lab-made opioid.

Users News wants to learn more about our readers and what you want to see us cover, so we’ve put together a short 5-minute survey. All questions are optional, but the more information we get about our readers, the better! The survey is anonymous and confidential. We are giving out 2 x $50 gift vouchers for completing the survey! It’ll only take a few minutes, and your input is super valuable to us. Ready to share your thoughts? Survey closes 5 August 2024 at midnight.

Last week NSW Health published guidelines for depot bupe. While it is intended to provide guidance for health practitioners and prescribers, there’s a lot of useful information in here for those on opioid treatment programs . We’ve saved you some time by summarising the key points relevant to NUAA’s community.

This year, NUAA outreach workers have participated in 2 successful high-intensity testing campaigns in NSW Correctional Centres. In April, the HITC crew were in Nowra at the South Coast Correctional Centre where over 90% of the population received a hep C test. This was followed by another successful event at the Bathurst Correctional Centre in June.

Hepatitis C peer worker Kiah Glasson shares her story with Users News and gives the low down on all things hep C.

Reflections on the missing piece in the hepatitis C elimination puzzle: the supply of clean sterile injecting equipment in Australian correctional centres.

As the picking season ramps up in NSW, we’ve chatted to two peer educators in the plant medicine space, Dr Liam Engel and Caine Barlow to find out what NOT to do when foraging.

A class of synthetic opioids called nitazenes, which are stronger than fentanyl, are beginning to hit Sydney streets with NSW Health issuing two recent health warnings about the drug.

Users News chats to peer worker Jodie Stevenson about her journey into the AOD sector and how you can get a job in the industry too.

People whose drug preferences are for stimulants and party drugs may not see the need to know about opioid harm reduction, or carry Naloxone, which can reverse opioid overdoses. However, with highly potent opioids such as nitazenes, are being used to cut cocaine, meth and MDMA, it’s important to be aware of the risk of taking opioids unknowingly, and what to do about it.