NEWS ROOM

Greens MP and spokesperson for drug harm reduction, Cate Faehrmann, has introduced legislation that would allow a trial of pill testing at music festivals and a fixed site across New South Wales in the Upper House today.

Pill testing could be trialled over next year’s music festival season if three minor Victorian parties get their way on Thursday, a day after the state government announced it was open to talks about decriminalising personal use of cannabis.

Pill Testing Australia confirmed on social media that the free drug-checking service would be available at Canberra's Spilt Milk festival on Saturday. The free, confidential service will be available to festival goers on the festival grounds from 11:30am.

On November 25, KnowYourStuffNZ is celebrating the two-year anniversary of the Drug and Substance Checking Legislation Act 2021. This Act made drug checking permanently legal in Aotearoa New Zealand, a world first.

The Greens have renewed their calls for free pill testing, in an urge to the Victorian Labor Government to take up an offer to establish a free pill testing trial. It calls growing calls from all around Australia, as experts say pill testing is essential to saving...

At an event at Parliament House today, PTA offered a cost-free trial of its public health based pill testing service to the Victorian Government - the offer is supported and endorsed by a variety of unions and organisations.

Between 1 January 2013 and 30 June this year, 94,535 general and strip-searches were prompted by the dogs but nearly 75% of these searches yielded no illicit drugs

Dr David Caldicott, Clinical Lead for Pill Testing Australia and CANTest, who provide festival and fixed-site health and drug checking services in the ACT, told Yahoo News Australia that Canberra has offered other states, like NSW, free trials.

The Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA), with the support of 77 health and community organisations, published a statement on Monday pushing for the Victorian government to implement a drug-checking service and early warning system in the state.

Many of the harms people experience from using illegal drugs are a result of unregulated supply. Drugs may be contaminated, or completely substituted with something unexpected. They may also be of variable and unknown dosage or strength.

The trial would not require new legislation and could be achieved through “existing frameworks”, said Murphy, a former president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties. He said NSW Health could issue licences to existing drug-checking services like Pill Testing...

Harm Reduction Australia and Pill Testing Australia president Gino Vumbaca said drug-checking services could not operate without the support of government and the police. “The bill would remove any doubt about our permission to operate,” he said. “Politicians are way...

As the weather warms and music festival season approaches, a concern for many attendees will be how to deal with police and what your rights are. This is due to the often-overwhelming presence of police officers and sniffer dogs at festivals and concerts.

A deal's not done until it's done, of course, but Mr Vumbaca is hopeful after failing to get anywhere with hundreds of other insurers. If he is right, pill-testing at the festival on November 25 would be there just after possession of small amounts of drugs was...

Ms Ross-King and her family have campaigned for active measures to reduce drug-related risks, including pill testing. "The premier, government, governments before them ... they want young people to change their behaviour," she said. "They are not going to change their...

President of Harm Reduction Australia and Pill Testing Australia Gino Vumbaca said his offer to conduct free trials had been knocked back by the state government for the past five years.

New figures indicate drug detection dogs have a low success rate. Some are urging for an end to their use at music festivals – as well as the practice of strip searches – and the implementation of pill testing.

Gino Vumbaca, President of Harm Reduction Australia and Pill Testing Australia, questioned why strip searching has to continue in the first place. “I think what’s fundamentally missing from this report is an understanding of the impact of strip searching people, and...

Harm Reduction Australia has offered to run a free pill testing trial at any festival of the NSW government’s choosing, but has been told no decisions will be made until after a drug summit.

Advocates for drug testing have called on NSW Premier Chris Minns to introduce it ahead of the busy Summer festival season - ABC

This is the spot where Professor Mal McLeod goes quietly about the business of saving lives in the Canberra region, though the analytical chemist is slow to embrace the lifesaver tag.

In just over a year of operation, CanTEST has checked 1,250 samples of recreational drugs like ecstasy, LSD, ketamine and cocaine, as well as harder drugs of dependence like heroin and ice.

Nearly a thousand people have come forward to have their drugs tested and the results suggest a host of dangerous supplements and contamination may be found in the country's party drugs.

President of Harm Reduction Australia and Pill Testing Australia Gino Vumbaca said the organisation had offered to run free pill testing trials, both during last month’s pride month or at a future music festival, which were not responded to favourably.

CanTEST, which has been operating for about a year in Canberra's CBD, is free and open to anyone who wants to know the contents of their pills or drugs.

A new La Trobe University study shows majority support for drug checking services with 56 per cent of the over 18,000 respondents supporting related policies.

How to sign up for Australia’s first dedicated harm reduction online education course HRA Online Course Announcement - June 2023

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has backed calls for drug testing services to save lives at risk.

The new service is now available at community clinics in Wellington and Christchurch five days a week, and four days a week in Dunedin. The clinics are provided by the Needle Exchange Services Trust (NEST) and are the only regular scheduled drug checking service...

Canberra's drug checking site has now tested 1000 substances. The harm reduction service reported a majority of users disposing of their illicit drugs when testing found they contained unexpected and dangerous substances. ABC's Adam Shirley spoke with Stephanie...

Mal McLeod - lead analyst for Pill Testing Australia

A NSW minister has broken ranks to urge her Labor government colleagues to “join the nationwide movement” toward pill testing at music festivals, while also suggesting controversial policing tactics such as strip searches and drug-detection dogs should be part of the...

Pill testing will not be available onsite at this year’s Groovin the Moo festival in Canberra after exorbitant insurance premiums meant the service was too costly to offer, but CanTEST is expanding its services on the festival weekend. Read the article

The Groovin the Moo music festival in Canberra will again be without pill-testing after prohibitively expensive insurance premiums forced the service to be scrapped. Read the ABC Article

The Tasmanian government has again ruled out allowing pill testing, despite expert calls for it to be introduced following organisers at a music festival over the weekend warning patrons in the wake of a fatality at the event.  Read the ABC report.

Listen to the HRA Interview (audio)

The potentially lethal drug – called metonitazine – was detected in unmarked yellow pills that were sold as oxycodone. The substance has linked to fatal drug overdoses in New Zealand and the United States. Read the SBS article.

Queensland will become the second Australian jurisdiction to offer pill testing. While the timeline is yet to be announced, once up and running, Queenslanders who use illicit drugs can have them checked to see what they actually contain before taking them. Read The...

Canberra’s confidential pill-testing service, which allows people to check what substances are in the illicit drugs they buy, has been extended.  Read the ABC article.

Canberra’s free and confidential pill-testing service — the only one of its kind in Australia — has been so popular it has been extended beyond an initial six-month trial to at least 12 month. Read the Vice article.

Australia’s first government-sanctioned drug-checking service CanTEST has issued its inaugural ‘red alert’, the highest level of warning, following the detection of metonitazene in a yellow pill masquerading as the pharmaceutical drug oxycodone. We should be very...