Guest editorial: NSW responds to illicit drugs

Abstract

New South Wales is the centre of Australian illicit drug use. Trends in Sydney are followed more or less in other States and regional areas. Heroin use is now visible in Aboriginal communities, as well as in urban and rural settings. Heroin is both cheap and available. Heroin markets develop in places of disadvantage, for instance: in central Sydney, in south-west Sydney, and in rural Aboriginal communities.