In late March, the Peers on Wheels (POW) project carried out its 600^th Point of Care Test (POCT) for the hep C virus. The POW project is an ongoing 1-year pilot scheme by NUAA — in partnership with The Kirby Institute, NSW Health, and selected Local Health Districts — to bring hep C testing and treatment to people who inject drugs, wherever they are in NSW.

Hep C isn’t nice. It makes you feel permanently sick and run down. There are reasons, however, why people might be reluctant about getting treated. Before 2016, the main treatment was Interferon. As Aunt Libby — an Aboriginal elder and grandmother of 13 (soon to be 14) — explains, that treatment could feel worse than the illness it was curing. The good news is that the new treatment (a box of pills called “Direct Acting Antivirals” or DAAs) is much easier: fewer pills, no injections and much fewer side effects. Furthermore, they are free or cheap, and if you get reinfected you can do the treatment again — as many times as you need to. Aunt Libby has had both hep C treatments. In this article she compares the 2 and says, “I’d recommend this treatment to anyone. But Interferon, they can forget about that one!”

“LSD, MDMA, ketamine, ibogaine: for years I tried any potentially therapeutic substance I could get my hands on. I found my way to empty rooms in quiet places and would take these drugs while listening to music, hoping to find a path to peace.” Al talks about his own experiments with psychedelics, shares insights about how psychedelics have given him a tool, but not the answer, for dealing with mental health issues and speculates over whether psychedelics may be useful in increasing the well-being of society as a whole.

Golden staph is a nasty bug and surprisingly common — 8 out of 10 people have it on their skin. If you don’t swab, you can inject it into your bloodstream, and, as Sally explains, it’s not something you want in your bloodstream! So swab!

How do NSW Parties score on important drug policy reform in NSW? The NSW Users and Aids Association asked registered parties for the upcoming NSW Election a series of questions to understand how their party scores on important issues in NSW Drug Policy Reform. See the scorecard to find out.

Through the Peers on Wheels (POW) project, NUAA has partnered with The Kirby Institute, NSW Health, and selected Local Health Districts, to work towards eliminating hep C through outreach, testing and offering treatment options. At the heart of the project is a van, with a Point of Care Testing (POCT) machine and a skilled peer workforce. The aim is to remove barriers to hep C treatment among people who inject drugs by going to where people live and providing the service without stigma. The POW team has visited various regional cities and towns and rural communities around NSW, but Users News caught up with them in Riverwood in the suburbs of Sydney.

3 women from 3 different backgrounds put their family and their drug use together in 3 different ways

Celia is gently spoken and carries herself with a natural dignity and beauty. She has a lifetime of advocating for others, working in her community to improve conditions and documenting life as an urban Aboriginal. Intelligent, opinionated and creative, she is clearly a natural leader, although her modesty does not allow her to think in those terms. Celia was born and raised on the Block in a loving family, and although she has lived elsewhere from time to time — including giving her children a connection to the bush — she always returns to her community in the Redfern/Waterloo area.

The responsibilities of motherhood changed Pandora’s relationship with drugs. Here she reflects on this and how it has also changed her relationship with herself. “I used to believe that stuff about myself, but I don’t anymore. I know the truth,” she explains. “I know that people who use drugs are people like anyone else and unlike anyone else. We are smart, interesting, creative and uniquely ourselves. We love our families and our friends. We work hard at our jobs. We clean the house and walk the dog. We try to be healthy. We make mistakes. We grow.”

Kira is, in her own words, “a young woman who has been through a lot” but, writing from jail, she tells how she’s re-taking control of her life and shares what she has learned. “For me, the secret to change is to focus all your energy not on looking back fighting the old, but on building the new you,” she says. “Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tiptoe if you like but take the step! It takes courage and resilience to be who you really are in a society that mostly denies your existence.”

3 ways we can reduce instances of sexual based harm, facilitate safe spaces for women at music festivals, and develop a community we are all proud of.

Nerida’s Story — “More importantly, I have come to believe that I have the right and responsibility to keep myself safe and healthy, and make my own decisions. I am owning my own body and veins.”

Chantell’s Story — I was a sex worker in Darlinghurst for many years. The police, treating us all as criminals, pushed us further and further away from the new posh residential developments, but no matter where we worked we kept our identity as a community, supporting each other. We really had each other’s backs then

I first sought out an ADHD diagnosis when I was 23, and the psychiatrist told me, “No, actually you just have the learning capacity of a 16-year-old due to your drug addiction.” Yikes. It took me a couple of years to wrestle with that message – to make sure I rejected it on a deep level – before I tried again with another doctor. And boom, I was right: my ADHD scored off the charts. No wonder amphetamines help my brain feel regulated.

When you’re beginning your journey of drug use, it is easy to get a bit overenthusiastic and end up lost, especially when you don’t have any elders around to help guide you. Akshay spent a lot of time worrying that cannabis and LSD had given him drug-induced anxiety, depersonalisation and psychosis, but he eventually realised that the people who were trying to help him held some negative attitudes towards drugs, and he needed a more supportive — and experienced — community around him.

At Users News we often hear stories about people facing stigma when accessing OTP services. However, there’s always somewhere worse, and if the issue is stigmatisation of people who use drugs, that somewhere is often the USA. American harm reduction activist Danielle Russell was in Australia last year and was with a friend when they were picking up their methadone. She was totally blown away by the fact that her Australian friend was treated like a human. She wrote this article for Filter magazine when she returned to the US.

Jack’s friend became mentally unwell and he desperately wanted to help but unfortunately, he started to burn out. Jack talks about what you can do to support a friend, and how to set healthier boundaries.

Kate is a proud Aboriginal woman who has a history of injecting heroin. She wants to share her unique experience of clearing hep C twice, nearly 2 decades apart. Her first treatment was in prison in the early 2000s, with Interferon. Soon after she got out of prison, she got hep C again and didn’t get treated until 2019. Getting treated a second time has been life changing for her and she now supports peers with hep C and drug use.

Pat is a gay Aboriginal man with bipolar. He shares what it’s like to get caught with drugs and then be noticed by police for the rest of his life.

Our handy new table lists the penalties you could get in NSW for possessing different quantities of the most common drugs.