Author: Gideon Warhaft

Forum overview Currently in Australia, there is no regular mechanism to unite and bring those working in and around harm reduction and related sectors together at the national level. The National Harm Reduction Forum 2024  is a free, online event for important conversations on harm reduction and drug policy reform in Australia. This year’s forum will focus…

The CanTEST Health and Drug Checking Service will continue to be funded until June 2027, as the ACT government extends its funding by $1.8 million. Read more

Dr David Caldicott, an emergency department consultant and clinical lead with Pill Testing Australia, said festival-goers often changed their behaviour once they had their drugs tested. Caldicott said the Victorian drug-checking proposal was timely because nitazenes – a new group of dangerous synthetic opioids more potent than fentanyl – had been found in pills tested…

Queensland, Australia, just committed to government-funded testing of illegal drugs. The harm reduction strategy is popular in Western Europe, where lab technicians have set up a tent at music festivals or clubs and run basic tests on party drugs. As The World’s Sarah Birnbaum reports, the idea is to give partiers a chance to reject…

The illegal use of ketamine soared in 2023 in Australia. But as ketamine rises in popularity, organised crime groups are importing dangerous chemical copies of the drug. The number of these copies on the market is “an unknown, unknown”. Read more

It’s the first time CanTEST has issued such a notice this year, and only the fourth time since operations began in Civic in mid-2022. “A red alert is something that we issue very rarely,” explained Dr Caldicott. “It is a reflection of how serious we think the impact of drugs like this can be on…

MDMB-4en-PINACA is a powerful synthetic cannabinoid that can lead to overdoses, even at low concentrations, and has been linked to serious harm – including deaths – in New Zealand. DMT is a psychedelic drug that produces effects similar to those of LSD.

The first of those trials of drug checking in Australia was conducted at the Groovin’ the Moo music festival in 2018, by a group that came to be known as Pill Testing Australia (PTA). The story of how that happened is discussed elsewhere (here) but “how” we do it is a matter of record. Read…

NSW Health has issued a public health warning after about 20 people suffered severe opioid overdoses in the Penrith area in the past month. An investigation revealed nitazenes were found in drug samples related to a cluster of overdoses reported in Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District. Read more

Because of their potency, compared with natural opioids such as heroin or morphine, they can be much more addictive and more dangerous. In January, the chief executive of the nation’s only pill-testing venue in Canberra, Chris Gough, said the detection of nitazenes in pills sold as MDMA showed the need for similar services in other…