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.

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

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.

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.