On July 1, laws regarding research chemicals or “legal highs” are changing in the Netherlands. The implications of this will be further reaching that just Europe, with ripples likely to be felt on our shores. What does this mean for us here in Australia? And what can we do to combat and keep safe from the effects of these changes?

As high taxes which already make legal cigarettes in Australia the most expensive in the world are being hiked yet again, an increasing proportion of nicotine consumed becomes illicit. You can even notice this if you look at litter in urban streets — these days you hardly ever see Australian cigarette packets with their distinctive drab olive plain packaging and scary pictures. Multiple brands in colourful packaging are back.

There have been a spate of media reports about the drug kush, described as “a mysterious new zombie drug that’s ravaging Sierra Leone” with outlandish claims like “the use of ground-up human bones as one of the drug’s cocktail of ingredients.” In real life, kush is either synthetic cannabinoids or nitazenes (but never both). There was no zombie apocalypse, but there is a nitazenes crisis in a very poor, war-torn country.

Throughout history, sex workers have been involved in the global harm reduction movement. In the spirit of community, sex worker peers have shared with Users News their tips and tricks for harm reduction on the job.

If you’re at a music festival in Australia and police are patrolling with drug sniffer dogs, you know you’re in NSW. On Monday, May 5, the NSW Supreme Court began hearing a class action suit brought on behalf of more than 3000 festival goers over unlawful strip searches between 2016 and 2022.
[CW: sexual assault; descriptions of invasive police searches]

I went from the kid who could do no wrong to the black sheep of the family. At 17, I was crying in bed, deep in cannabis withdrawal. To my parents, I’d become a stranger, someone they thought might steal their wedding rings for a gram of bud.

In NSW, drug driving recently became the second leading cause of deaths on the road, surpassing fatigue, drink driving and non-seatbelt use. Getting behind the wheel of a vehicle high on anything is generally a dangerous idea. But this issue is even more serious when it comes to benzos.

Benzodiazepines, aka benzos, are exploding in popularity, especially among young people in Australia. But people aren’t just sourcing their benzos from people with prescriptions, there’s a huge fake benzo markets with frequent quality control issues. It’s an underground subculture filled with unmarked cliff edges and landslides. So just how do you navigate it safely?

At Yours & Owls festival in Wollongong, you may have noticed a unique service hidden away inside a white tent, a safe space where punters could discuss their drug use history and intentions. This was NSW’s first festival drug checking service. But, as with any new harm reduction service, people naturally raise a number of concerns. Users News is here to provide the answers.