Since 1989, the NSW Users & AIDS Association (NUAA) has been producing User’s News, a peer-based, quarterly magazine targeting illicit drug users. With 18,000 copies printed per edition and an estimated readership of 60,000, User’s News is the most widely read drug user magazine in the world. It is also unique in having a significant proportion of its content made up of drug user stories in addition to the harm reduction information it is funded to disseminate.

But what are the virtues of disseminating harm reduction information in this form as opposed to other models? And what are the benefits for non drug users from such publications?

In early 2007 NUAA conducted a User’s News reader satisfaction survey. Among the findings was that 55% of respondents claimed that they had used more safely as a result of reading User’s News. The sense of drug users’ “ownership” of the magazine was suggested by the nearly 20% of respondents who claimed they had submitted stories and letters to the magazine in the past and that the magazine is often read cover to cover and repeatedly. Responses from non users such as parents, healthcare workers and police indicated their appreciation for the window User’s News offered into the ideas, experiences and lives of drug users and the link that the magazine provides between a large number of drug users and researchers and policy makers.

The paper will argue that drug user magazines are extremely effective in disseminating credible harm reduction information and that this credibility is derived from the participation and ownership drug users experience with such resources. The paper will also argue that drug user magazines offer a unique insight into the world of drug users that is beneficial to policy makers, researchers and people working within the drug and alcohol sector.