The NSW Users & AIDS Association

I was going to begin my first editorial for this magazine by laying out a series of arguments in favour of needle and syringe programs in our state’s prisons. On putting this issue together, however, I quickly realised that doing so would be redundant: I would simply be repeating the views that are far better expressed by this issue’s contributors from our community.

I’ve been in jail several times, and have probably done between five and seven years all up, broken up over different stints. I’m going to share my story of when I was on remand. I had a major battle to be allowed to do my time in normal, not in the bone yard with the rock spiders and the sex offenders. Being a transgender in custody is a shit-fight enough in itself.

Managing the Risk: LEAP Australia’s Paul Cubitt

In late 2009, User’s News editor Gideon Warhaft interviewed Norm Stamper, a retired Seattle police chief who is an advisory board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a non-profit education and advocacy organisation opposed to the War on Drugs.

LEAP Australia, an organisation affiliated with but separately run from its American cousin, was established last December, with its website presence launched in May. The organisation’s patrons include retired High Court Justice Michael Kirby, former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, former ACT Supreme Court judge Ken Crispin and Queen’s Counsel Robert Richter.