Drug Info

September 27, 2022www.theguardian.com Canberra service examined 58 samples in August with nearly a third of potential users discarding drugs once made aware of what they actually contained Australia’s first government-backed pill and drug testing service has found a majority of samples were tainted with other substances, with nearly a third of people choosing to ditch their drugs after getting them checked. In its first month of operation, Canberra’s fixed-site CanTest health and drug checking clinic examined 58 samples, with 18 people discarding their drugs once the results were in. Researchers found all the cocaine tested at the service had purity…

January 17, 2019 www.abc.net.au Australia is in the middle of another national debate about pill testing, after the deaths of five young people at music festivals in recent months. Medical experts and festival organisers have urged government leaders across the country to reconsider their opposition to pill testing and allow drug testing services to operate at music festivals. So far, various governments haven’t budged. In the absence of professional, sophisticated pill testing, senior lecturer in addiction at Edith Cowan University, Dr Stephen Bright, has come out and advised people to test their drugs at home, using reagent tests. “Reagent pill…

May 2017 www.beat.com.au Whether it’s available at festivals or not, there are easy ways you can test your pills yourself.   The topic of pill testing is like a venus flytrap, devouring us more and more every time someone falls sick at a music festival, overdoses, or is apprehended for possession. It’s a hurricane that doesn’t look likely to abate soon, with Australian politicians’ varying stance on the issue a reason for that. In October 2017, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews flipped his position on safe drug-injection rooms after a jump in heroin overdoses in Victoria. He implemented a two-year trial…

April 6, 2017 www.vice.com For advice on how to get the most accurate results we asked a scientist, a dealer, and a partygoer. I remember once, when I was around 19, a friend bought some MDMA off a French backpacker in the smoking area of a Melbourne club. She was pretty sure she’d been ripped off. “I actually have no idea what this is,” she admitted, grimacing as she unwrapped the tiny square of aluminium foil he’d given her. She nearly called it, until another friend dipped her finger into the powder, rubbed it into her gums, and declared ,…

March 28, 2017 www.vice.com “Just legalise testing. People will take what they want to take, when they want to take it.” Between lockouts, sniffer dogs, and some of the harshest drug penalties in Australia, Sydney’s party culture has evolved into a pretty weird beast. If you’re a banker, you’re probably going to be fine—even under the prohibition-loving Baird Government, the city remained Australia’s cocaine capital. But for your average punter, things have become a little more complicated. In Sydney, riding the train with a little weed in your pocket can see you hauled up by a drug dog. Doctors aren’t…

March 28, 2017 www.vice.com “There isn’t really a nightlife in the ‘Gong. It’s a bit dead here. So MDMA makes life a lot more enjoyable.” This article is part of the VICE MDMA Census. See the results for cities all around Australia here. For a glossary of the different chemicals we identified, read this. If you want to have a night out in Wollongong, your choice is limited to a handful of bars and clubs that open when they feel like it. And like the venues, drugs are in short supply. MDMA and cocaine tend to be the only drugs…

November 2, 2016 www.vice.com Just how garbage is Australian coke, really? To find out we took some purity testers to our nation’s largest party for pretend high rollers. Every year the Melbourne Cup fills Flemington Racecourse with people in suits and giant hats who believe that for one short day they’re high rollers. And like all high rollers, they do a bunch of coke, even if “doing coke” in Australia translates to “doing talcum powder cut with Wizz Fizz and/or glass.” Or that’s what I assume anyway. In fact, most Australians who are partial to a line assume our gear…

February 9, 2016 www.vice.com Drug-testing facilities are legal and saving lives overseas, but Australian politicians are determined they stay banned here. We decided to take matters into our own hands. Between November 2014 and December 2015 six people died taking drugs at Australian music festivals. A lot of these weren’t even overdoses. They were just people who took something from a friend, or a friend of a friend, or from a stranger in a toilet block. They then reacted badly to some chemical used instead of MDMA, or whatever they thought they were taking, and never made it home. In…

February 15, 2016 www.news.com.au “ONE pill’s $20 and it’ll last you four hours.” As party drugs continue to claim lives, there’s a simple reason why the deaths won’t deter users. Paramedics care for a woman who collapsed outside the Stereosonic dance festival in Brisbane. Two punters died at Steresonic concerts last year.Source:News Corp Australia SYLVIA Choi was just 25 when she overdosed on pills at Stereosonic festival in Sydney last November. Stefan Woodward, 19, died in exactly the same way a week later. Yet as hospital admissions for ecstasy and MDMA use soar in Australia, the chilling stories are failing…

December 1, 2015 www.abc.net.au “I get phone calls every summer for the past 15 years,” says Johnboy Davidson, who is based in Canberra and runs one of the world’s largest online databases of ecstasy pill reports. “And I’m massively cynical, particularly when I know what’s happened in Europe, where they’ve had testing for 25 years and have lower rates of drug usage and no deaths. The death of Sylvia Choi after taking drugs at Stereosonic in Sydney on the weekend has led to renewed calls to start pill testing at music festivals. For the small, tight-knit group advocating for ‘harm reduction strategies’ to…

Is pill testing a good idea? The relationship between music festivals in this country and drug use seems almost inseparable. In light of the seven young Australians fatally overdosing in the past year, it is hard to imagine that our national war on drugs is working. Among the seven include 26-year-old Sylvia Choi and 19-year-old Stefan Woodward who died within the same week after attending the Stereosonic music festival in November 2015. In the blame game of who is responsible for these deaths, Australia is not only left without a successful strategy to combat drug use, but also the highest…

February 17, 2019 The Canberra Times Canberra tobacco stores have reported a surge in sales for DIY pill-testing kits, as debate around pill testing at music festivals continues. The kits, available over-the-counter for as little as $10, can identify potentially lethal substances in MDMA. The EZ Test has been listed for sale at four stores in the ACT and has also been stocked by a chemist chain in parts of western Sydney and Darwin. Owner of tobacco store Mull Up in Mitchell Chris Burn said there had been a recent uptake in sales of the test. “They’ve been selling really…