A Word From Know Your Stuff

Posted 3:56pm Saturday 11th April 2026 by KnowYourStuff Otago

Who are we?  KnowYourStuffNZ is a peer-led drug checking and harm reduction service that has been operating since 2015. We address the lack of factual, proven information available to drug users about the substances they intend to take by providing drug checking and drug-related information Read more...

Weed, The Gateway Drug

Posted 3:11pm Saturday 11th April 2026 by Critic

Cannabis has spent decades carrying the label of a “gateway drug.” For most young people , the phrase feels outdated and inaccurate: a relic left over from Harold's discussions and stern talks with our parents that convinced us one joint would inevitably lead to heroin. But by the Read more...

Editorial: Drugs are Everywhere

Posted 3:25pm Saturday 11th April 2026 by Gryffin Blockley

Kia ora and welcome to Critic Te Ārohi’s annual Drug Issue. This happens to be one of Critic’s most popular issues (alongside the sex issue – maybe we are all as mature as we think we are as young adults).  The first article I wrote for Critic in my tenure as Co-Editor Read more...

Who Gets to Be High?

Posted 11:41am Sunday 8th March 2026 by Critic

The big move South to university opened my world.  One night you’re sitting at home with your parents, half-listening to them hammer in their values and opinions at the dinner table. Next, you’re living in close quarters with a few hundred frothy eighteen year olds. People from Read more...

Debatable: Should Athletes Be Allowed to Compete Openly on Performance-Enhancing Drugs?

Posted 9:53pm Saturday 4th October 2025 by Molly Smith-Soppet

Pro Enter the Enhanced Games. Essentially the Olympics on steroids (literally), this event is funded by three big time venture capitalists and has a huge team of doctors, professors, and lawyers involved. They will do state-of-the-art medical profiling, blood, urine, brain imaging, and genomic Read more...

Breaking News: You Might Be on Meth and Not Even Know It

Posted 4:47pm Saturday 19th July 2025 by Molly Smith-Soppet

If you felt like O-Week hit harder this year, it wasn't just the hangxiety talking. We felt the same, so we’ve done it again; we hit up the Police to analyse everyone’s piss, and fuck you had a good O-Week! There was a dramatic surge in MDMA consumption across Dunedin during February Read more...

Locked Out of Locking In

Posted 10:08pm Sunday 4th May 2025 by Stella Weston

North Dunedin is a place like no other. 20,000 students, textbooks in tow, eyes bleary from hours spent poring over readings and lecture recordings – and a bustling black market for Ritalin to fuel it all. From the artificial glow of Central Library during exam season, to the drunken depths of Read more...

Third-year Wellness Influencer Insists Her Bag is Ethically Sourced

Posted 9:19pm Sunday 23rd March 2025 by Anderson Coomer

Local third-year Food Science and Nutrition Student student Molly Edwards, a self-proclaimed fitness and wellness influencer, who preaches the benefits of clean-eating, early morning runs and therapeutic properties of Saunas on her Instagram account (@MolsHolistic) put a pause on her ‘daily Read more...

Bodies on the Line

Posted 10:10pm Sunday 23rd March 2025 by Jodie Evans

POV: You just spent the last of your allowance on gig tickets, your fridge is a wasteland, and you’re dangerously close to monetising your toes. But there, casting sultry, cash-flashing bedroom eyes at you from the back of a discarded Critic on your coffee table, is a Zentech ad. A clinical Read more...

Weird Cones 2: Electric Bongaloo

Posted 4:52pm Sunday 16th March 2025 by Critic Staff

The idea of doing a sequel to one of our favourite articles ever, ‘I tried to rip bongs through household ingredients’, has been floating around the writers’ room for years now like a cloud of questionable smoke. The original included bongs of raw eggs, sardines, and instant Read more...