Pill testing

Drug checking or pill testing, as it is known in the Southern Hemisphere, is a way to reduce the harm from drug consumption by allowing users to find out the content and purity of substances that they intend to consume. This empowers users to make safer choices: to avoid more dangerous substances, to use smaller quantities, and to avoid dangerous combinations. Drug checking or pill testing, as it is known in the Southern Hemisphere, is a way to reduce the harm from drug consumption by allowing users to find out the content and purity of substances that they intend to consume. This empowers users to make safer choices: to avoid more dangerous substances, to use smaller quantities, and to avoid dangerous combinations. Drug checking services have developed over the last twenty-five years in twenty countries and are being considered in more countries, although attempts to implement them in some countries have been hindered by local laws. Drug checking initially focused on MDMA users in electronic dance music events but the services have broadened as drug use has become more complex. These developments have been strongly affected by local laws and culture, resulting in a diverse range of services, both for mobile services that attend events and festivals and fixed sites in town centres and entertainment districts. For instance, staff may or may not be able to handle illegal substances, which limits the use of testing techniques to those where the staff are not legally in possession of those substances. People intending to take drugs provide a small sample to the testing service (often less than a single dose). Test results may be provided immediately, after a short waiting period, or later. Drug checking services use this time to discuss health risks and safe behaviour with the service users. The services also provide public health information about drug use, new psychoactive substances and trends at a national level. The earliest reported drug checking service is the Drug Information and Monitoring System (DIMS) in the Netherlands supported by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. Since 1992 the service has tested over 100,000 drug samples at a national network of twenty-three testing facilities. Service users receive results within a week via phone or email and the service publishes aggregated results describing what substances are in use. European countries have led the introduction of drug checking services, with Asociación Hegoak Elkartea founded in Spain in 1994, TechnoPlus in France founded in 1995, and Modus Fiesta in Belgium in 1996. DanceSafe have operated in the USA since 1998 providing reagent testing and harm reduction advice. More recent services include The Loop founded in the UK in 2013 and KnowYourStuffNZ in New Zealand in 2015, with Pill Testing Australia launching after a successful trial in 2018. On March 31st 2017 a coalition of drug safety organisations hosted the first-ever International Drug Checking Day to raise awareness of safer drug use. The initiative was aimed at recreational users, with a particular emphasis on the nightlife community, and aims to promote harm reduction—accepting that people will choose to take drugs, and providing them with tools to minimise the risks. Front-of-house testing provides testing services to clients at events. It provides real-time, as-you-wait results. An example is the testing at BOOM festival in Portugal where drug testers are legally allowed to handle samples. Where testers are not allowed to handle samples, for fear of breaking laws around possession, clients themselves must handle the substance to be tested. Examples of this model are KnowYourStuffNZ in New Zealand and ChEck iT! in Austria. Back-of-house testing is more restrictive. The substances tested do not come directly from event participants. Instead, they may come from samples confiscated by Police or event security or samples that are disposed of into drug amnesty bins. The results may not be available to event attendees.