"No penalties. No arrests. No jails": Perspectives on drug decriminalization among people who inject drugs in Sydney.

The decriminalization of drug possession in varied forms is gaining some traction around the world. Yet prospects for people with lived and living experience of drug use to influence the direction of drug law and policy reform remains bound by stigma and exclusion. This study considers the aspirations for decriminalization of people who inject drugs through 20 semi-structured qualitative interviews with the clients of the Sydney injecting centre.

Towards a social harm approach in drug policy.

In this paper, we explore how the social harm approach can be adapted within drug policy scholarship. Since the mid-2000s, a group of critical criminologists have moved beyond the concept of crime and criminology, towards the study of social harm. This turn proceeds decades of research that highlights the inequities within the criminal legal system, the formation of laws that protect the privileged and punish the disadvantaged, and the systemic challenge of the effectiveness of retribution and punishment at addressing harm in the community.

The Coloniality of drug prohibition.

There have been several recent commentaries which have highlighted the relevance of the postcolonial perspective to drug prohibition and called for the decolonisation of drug policy (Daniels et al., 2021; Hillier, Winkler & Lavallée, 2020; Lasco, 2022; Mills, 2019). While these are significant interventions in the field, sparse drugs scholarship has engaged more directly with well-developed literature and concepts from Critical Indigenous Studies (Moreton-Robinson, 2016) and Indigenous Standpoint Theory (Moreton-Robinson, 2013; Nakata, 2007) and reflected on its applicability to the drug and alcohol field.

The gendered violence of injecting-related stigma among relatively affluent, suburban women who inject drugs.

Introduction: In honouring the legacy of Jude Byrne's life-long advocacy for women and mothers who use drugs, this paper presents a case study of a group of women about whom we know little about and hear even less from: women who inject drugs in relatively affluent suburbs.

Methods: Based on a 2020 qualitative study of people who inject drugs in an affluent area of Sydney known as 'The Beaches', we use in-depth interview data to thematically explore the lived experiences of gendered stigma among women who inject drugs.

Results: Even when women occupy the 'ideal' social position in terms of class (middle-class) and race (White) they remain subject to harmful forms of gendered stigma related to injecting drug use.

Is non-medical use normal? Normalisation, medicalisation and pharmaceutical consumption.

The theory of the normalisation of youth drug use in advanced capitalist societies has had an enduring legacy in contemporary drug scholarship. While the literature on the normalisation of 'illicit' drugs is well developed, less has been written about application of the theory to emerging discourse of pharmaceutical 'abuse', and how this might necessitate different thinking around what can be considered normal consumption. Pharmaceuticals are not directly associated with criminality, and their use does not traditionally attract stigma.

Injection drug use in an affluent beachside community in Sydney: An exploratory qualitative study.

Introduction: Social research on injection drug use has focussed on marginalised groups and communities, leaving a large gap in the field's understanding of how it is experienced in other settings, including in relatively affluent communities.

Methods: This research is based on fieldwork and 18 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted in suburban beach-side communities in Sydney collectively known as the Northern Beaches.

Results: Participants did not experience stigmatisation by local health services as the norm or as a deterrent to access.

Qualitative research.

Background And Aims: This narrative review aims to highlight key insights from qualitative research on drug use and drug users by profiling a selection of classic works.

Methods: Consensus methods were used to identify and select four papers published in 1938, 1969, 1973 and 1984 considered to be classics.

Results: These landmark qualitative studies included the first account of addiction as a social process, demonstrating that people have meaningful responses to drug use that cannot be reduced to their pharmacological effects; the portrayal of inner-city heroin users as exacting, energetic and engaged social agents; identification of the interactive social learning processes involved in becoming a drug user; the application of the 'career' concept to understanding transitions and trajectories of drug use over time; and the articulation of a framework for understanding drug use that incorporates the interaction between pharmacology, psychology and social environments.

Self-limiting non-medical pharmaceutical opioid use among young people in Sydney, Australia: An exploratory study.

Introduction And Aims: Indicators suggest an escalation in opioid use globally, with recent HIV outbreaks linked to non-medical pharmaceutical opioid (NMPO) use. Little is known about how young Australians engage in NMPO use.

Design And Methods: During 2015, we conducted qualitative interviews with young people (16-29 years) who reported oral NMPO use at least twice in the past 90 days.

Pharmaceutical opioid use among oral and intravenous users in Australia: A qualitative comparative study.

Background: Between 1992 and 2012 dispensing episodes for pharmaceutical opioids (PO) in Australia increased from 500000 to 7500000. In the US, increases in the prescription of PO have been linked to increases in opioid-related morbidity and mortality and transitions to heroin injection. However, Australian data indicate that morbidity and mortality related to PO are relatively low, particularly when compared to heroin and other drugs.

High risk injecting behaviour among people who inject pharmaceutical opioids in Australia.

Background: Use of opioid analgesic medicines has doubled globally over the past decade, with a concomitant increase in prevalence of injection of pharmaceutical opioids (PO), including in Australia. This study investigates types of PO injected, methods used to prepare PO for injection and correlates of recent (last 6 months) PO injection among a large national sample of people who inject drugs (PWID).

Methods: The Australian NSP Survey (ANSPS), conducted annually at ∼50 NSP services across Australia, consists of a brief self-administered questionnaire and provision of a capillary dried blood spot for HIV and hepatitis C antibody testing.

From oxycodone to heroin: two cases of transitioning opioid use in young Australians.

Introduction And Aims: The non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids is associated with a range of negative health consequences, including the development of dependence, emergency room presentations and overdose deaths.

Design And Methods: Drawing on life history data from a broader qualitative study of the non-medical use of painkillers, this brief report presents two cases of transitions from recreational or non-medical pharmaceutical opioid use to intravenous heroin use by young adults in Australia.

Results: Although our study was not designed to assess whether recreational oxycodone use is causally linked to transitions to intravenous use, polyopioid use places individuals at high risk for progression to heroin and injecting.