How does it work?
Simply put, drug checking is the testing of drugs to find their contents, purity or the presence of harmful or fatal contaminants. There are a range of technologies and methods used for drug checking, but the important thing for us is to know what is available now, and what the future may hold.
What is drug checking?
Drug checking, also known as ‘pill testing’ or ‘drug safety testing’, is a harm reduction practice that empowers people who use drugs by providing them with information about the ingredients and purity of substances. This information is important, as it allows us to make informed decisions about the substances that we choose to consume.
Reagent testing kits
Reagent testing kids are the only legal way to check your drugs in NSW at the moment. These kits are simple, cheap, and are for personal use, but they are quite limited in what they can tell you.
These kits include one or more colour reagent tests. The reagents are liquids that change colour in the presence of specific substances and drugs. However, they aren’t able to give a reliable indication of purity, and you need to know what you’re looking for. For example, a positive result for MDMA wouldn’t necessarily mean that your drugs aren’t cut with something else – it just means that there is MDMA present in the sample.
Lab-quality testing
Lab-quality drug checking equipment is much for reliable and accurate than reagent tests, but unfortunately isn’t available at festivals in NSW just yet. This is the type of equipment that researchers used at the recent pill testing trials in ACT at Groovin’ the Moo festival.
These machines can give detailed information about the contents of drugs and are the best possible drug checking technology. While the equipment used for these tests will vary in some ways, they typically give an in-depth analysis into the ingredients of a substance and the level of purity.
When ‘pill testing’ is brought up in the media, generally the term refers to ‘Front of House’ testing. This is where a person brings their drugs in to be tested, and has a face-to-face interaction with someone working at the service about the drugs being tested, and harm reduction more broadly.
There is also ‘Back of House’ pill testing, where drugs that are discarded or seized by police/security are tested to gather information about drug trends. Back of house drug checking does not have an education or harm reduction aspect to it - it is largely for the benefit of law enforcement agencies.
What’s all the fuss about?
Drug checking has become a hotly contested subject in Australia, and debates about ‘pill testing’ seem to have become a permanent fixture of our media landscape. From all the controversy, you’d be forgiven for thinking drug checking is new. Globally, however, this type of harm reduction practice has been in place for decades.
In fact, there are over 30 drug checking services operating around the world. Over the last three decades these services have built a strong evidence base, and are proven to reduce the potential for overdoses, reduce drug related harms, and connect people who use drugs to harm reduction services.
It is also important to note that in Australia ‘drug checking’ has already been happening for decades in an unmonitored and unsanctioned manner, as our community has found innovative ways to keep one another safe. However, the only legal trials of ‘pill testing’ in Australia were conducted at the 2018 and 2019 editions of Groovin’ the Moo festival in the ACT.
These trials were conducted by a group called Pill Testing Australia (formerly known as the STA-SAFE Consortium), and showed patrons, promoters and politicians alike that drug checking services are effective at decreasing drug-related harms when available at Australian festivals.
Is drug checking just for people at festivals?
No, drug checking is for anyone who uses drugs! Although the public conversation about ‘pill testing’ focuses on testing so-called “party drugs” (e.g. MDMA) in festival environments, drug checking services can operate in many different settings. Globally, we’ve seen drug checking services run successfully at drug health services and in community-based settings, in addition to music festivals.
The Loop Australia, a not-for-profit organisation, has emerged as a leading voice in this area since being established in 2018. The Loop Australia advocates for drug checking services that are freely accessible to people who may use drugs, including in community- based settings and drug health services. Fixed-site drug checking is a health service that should be available for all people who use drugs. These services also give harm reduction workers the opportunity to educate people who use drugs on the specific risks of drugs that may be circulating (e.g. if there is a bad batch of heroin going around that is causing people to overdose).
Therefore, while it is important to have these services established at festival sites, it is also important that we remember this only benefits a portion of our community. We need to be advocating for drug checking services at festivals and fixed-site locations, so that they are available to our whole community and we can all get our substances tested and make informed choices about our drug use!