Author: Gideon Warhaft

Five thousand partygoers will have the opportunity to get their illicit drugs tested for purity at the iconic “bush doof” Rabbits Eat Lettuce Festival that begins on Thursday on Queensland’s Southern Downs. Pill Testing Australia’s David Caldicott says drug behaviours change depending on how long the party goes for. Read more

Pill Testing Australia executive officer Stephanie Tzanetis said drug checking was “very much something that the community wants”. She said Pill Testing Australia was excited to begin expanding more testing sites across music festivals. Read more

In January, Ms Allan said she had sought that advice after at least 10 people were taken to hospital following suspected drug use at festivals. “There are no current plans to change the policy setting on drug checking,” she said at the time. Harm Reduction Australia and Pill Testing Australia in November announced they formally…

CanTEST Coordinator Steph Tzanetis told ABC Radio Canberra this particular drug had been purchased from “the clear net, not the dark web”. She said taking the potent drug, methamphetamine, could have resulted in the person experiencing a stimulant overdose.  “So the signs and symptoms relating to a stimulant overdose can include things like overheating, a…

Stephanie Tzanetis is coordinator for Directions Health at CanTEST, the A-C-T’s fixed site pill testing service. She’s also the Executive Officer at Pill Testing Australia, which provided Australia’s first on-site music festival pill testing at Groovin the Moo in 2018. She says results from the first six months of the ACT trials, which were independently…

The Victorian government is being urged to reassess its stance on pill-testing after the death of a man from a suspected drug overdose at a weekend music festival. The 23-year-old was airlifted in a critical condition to the Alfred hospital in Melbourne from Mafeking near Ararat, in the state’s south-west, in the early hours of…

The NSW health department has issued a drugs warning after 11 people who believed they were using cocaine or methamphetamine recently experienced an opioid overdose. Read more

Dr Green said that, without drug testing being made available to the public, it was too challenging to find out what was in a drug after a patient had suffered an overdose. Read more

Chemistry lead of CanTEST, Australia’s only fixed-site drug checking service, Malcolm McLeod told ABC RN’s Life Matters that “around 10 per cent to 15 per cent of samples [are] maybe not as expected”. Read more

Gino Vumbaca, president of drug safety organisation Harm Reduction Australia, said his website receives “at least two to three emails a day” from people who want to safely test the pills that they or their children have. Read more