Alcohol and Drug Use

When the Government’s COVID-19 alert level system was announced in March 2020, the team at Te Puna Ora o Mataatua Charitable Trust (TPO) leapt into action

The Government will pass time limited legislation to give legal certainty to drug checking services, so they can carry out their work to keep New Zealanders safer this summer at festivals without fear of prosecution, Health Minister Andrew Little says

Screening for hepatitis C needs to be rolled out in pharmacy and needle exchange programmes if New Zealand wants to eliminate the life-threatening disease, says Ed Gane, a liver specialist and co-author of a study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal

University of Auckland researchers are seeking feedback on the practice of diluting oral methadone solutions from pharmacists providing opioid substitution treatment

Psychiatrist Caleb Armstrong believes oral ketamine does not cause hallucinations because it is absorbed more slowly than other forms of delivery 

The make-up of recreational “polypills” being seized by police at music festivals is concerning scientists working to reduce drug user harm 

In Peru, Christchurch pharmacist Des Bailey lives vicariously on the wild side after an encounter with a devotee of the psychoactive brew, Ayahuasca

The opioid epidemic in America must serve as a warning to New Zealand before it’s too late, a forensic pathologist says

A Hamilton pharmacist is disappointed a pharmacist hasn’t been appointed to the Government’s mental health panel, saying it’s because the profession isn’t “sexy” enough

A ban from selling codeine-based cold and flu tablets OTC from January 2020 has been recommended by Medsafe’s Medicines Classification Committee