40% Of Coke In Australia Has No Coke In It But Hey, Enjoy Your $320 Bag Of Icing Sugar

Australia’s first government-funded pill testing site has released results from its first month of operation and found that not only were most of them contaminated with random shit, about a third didn’t even contain *any* of the actual drug. But hey, enjoy that $320 bag of icing sugar. The Canberra pill testing site CanTest examined 58 samples in July and the results were so bad 18 of the 58 people who submitted bags decided to bin them when they found out what was really in them. Of all the cocaine samples, 40 per cent showed up with zero cocaine at all. Those that did have remnants of the drug all had purity levels below 27 per cent. Wow. More than 65 per cent of of MDMA samples (the most popular drug to be brought in) actually contained MDMA. So what was in them? By and large they contained a lot of talcum powder, sugar and dimethyl sulfone — a cutting agent. One sample was *entirely* sugar. All of the ketamine samples contained some ketamine and all of the heroin samples contained some heroin, with purity levels ranging from 31 to 63 per cent.

The data from the first month of drug checking at CanTEST is in!

Some really interesting stuff here, including some exotic novel psychoactive substances and – no surprises here, quite low purity cocaine.#drugchecking #pilltesting #cantest #NPS pic.twitter.com/19er0SzcEN — Canberra Alliance for Harm Minmisation & Advocacy (@CAHMA__) August 24, 2022

short-term pill testing trials forced to can its pill testing service in 2022

ANU Associate Professor Malcolm McLeod told Guardian Australia the pill testing results proved people kinda needed to know what they were buying and taking.

“They also suggest the service is reaching a far broader cross-section of the drug-taking community than what was possible from Australia’s first festival-based pill testing services conducted in previous years,” he said.

Associate Professor David Caldicott from ANU’s medical school who worked on the testing service said testing showed also people who took drugs “some sort of Cookie Monster personified [who] can’t be negotiated with and, no matter what we tell them, they’re going to use their drugs”.

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Ok this is very yikes but first of all: CanTest is only a six-month trial run through ANU at this stage and these results clearly show we need much more drug testing services and regulation. There have previously only been at Groovin’ The Moo in Canberra in 2018 and 2019. The festival was when its insurance provider pulled out. Pill testing is otherwise widely criticised by governments who push a message of abstinence. CanTest also hoped these shocking results would encourage more people to bring their drugs in for testing in the coming months. “We look forward to awareness of the service continuing to grow and more Canberrans visiting us in coming months to have their drugs tested and to access expert health advice,” it said in a statement. CanTest operates from the City Community Health Centre at 1 Moore Street in Canberra’s CBD on Thursdays from 10am to 1pm and Fridays from 6pm to 9pm.