Category Archive

The Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL) was first incorporated as an association in 1992.  The Australian Stigma Conference is a historic milestone, celebrating 30 years of AIVL, an organisation that remains at the forefront of the response to the HIV epidemic in Australia.  This response has saved many lives by limiting the spread of HIV Aids among …

Watch the video here: https://www.facebook.com/AIVLInc/videos/495570829203545 Today’s conference brings together policymakers, healthcare professionals and people who use drugs to discuss how stigma impacts people who use drugs. You can get your questions and comments into the conversation by using Slido! Go to slido.com and then use the code #AIVLSTIGMA22 To see the Conference Program Schedule go to aivl.org.au/events/australian-stigma-conference AIVL is the …

November 1 marks International Drug Users Day (IDUD). Held annually, the day remembers the movements and protests against the significant lack of and access to treatments and services for people who use drugs (PWUD); particularly in terms of inadequate public health policy and response to the disproportionate rates of blood borne viruses such as hepatitis and HIV amongst communities of …

On a cold and wet Monday afternoon, AIVL Policy & Project Officer Adrian Gorringe braced the wild weather and joined staff from CAHMA to attend the Family and Friends For Drug Law Reform (FFDLR) (ACT) 27th Annual Remembrance Ceremony. Bill Bush, president of the ACT Chapter of FFDLR opened the event to a considerable turnout. Despite the weather, people, families, and …

There is a new drug circulating around Canberra!  One reporter claims it may be so novel, there’s a high chance it has not even seen the inside of Berlin’s Berghain  Nightclub yet. A new compound, described as “Canberra Ketamine” or “CanKet” has been identified by CanTEST; the ‘face to face’, fixed site drug testing facility based in the ACT. The lead …

“I don’t know that I would even call it meth anymore…” – Joe Bozenko, DEA Chemist & Professor, Shephard University.Methamphetamine is arguably the most demonised, stigmatised and generally misconceived drug in global circulation. Within the Australian context, we have all seen the confronting, graphic and gratuitously violent imagery of anti-ice advertisements, depicting ‘ice’ users in diabolical fits of rage lashing …

Aussies love their stimulants nearly as much as sports! We punch well above our weight on the international level. On the world stage, we just miss out on a podium finish for our average total stimulant consumption, securing 4th place at 59 doses per 1,000 people per day [following Czechia (76 doses), the United States of America (USA; 74 doses), …

International Overdose awareness day was initiated in 2001, August 31 will mark 21 years of the world’s largest annual campaign to end overdose and remember without stigma those who have died, acknowledging the grief of all those impacted by overdose, whose loved ones have died or suffered permanent injury.

DULF is a collective made up of two drug users and activists fighting against the prevailing system that stigmatizes and kills drug users. They figuratively want to burn down the existing system, replacing it with a more caring and compassionate model. Their logo of flames encircled by flames suggests they want to be at the centre of something volatile and explosive.

Thursday July 21s saw the grand opening of CanTest, Australia’s first fixed-site drug checking service, often dubbed ‘pill testing’. The service is delivered by Directions Health Services in partnership with AIVL member organisation CAHMA and Pill Testing Australia.