Alex Ross-King, 19, wanted to know more about the pills she was planning to take – but didn’t know who to ask.
She died of a drug overdose after drinking and taking MDMA before Sydney’s Fomo festival in 2019.
It might not have happened if she’d had access to a clinic like the one that opened in Canberra on Tuesday, her mum said.
The CanTEST Health and Drug Checking Service is Australia’s first fixed site pill-testing clinic. It’s also a place people can go to ask questions about anything they plan to take, and the effect it might have.
At the service launch, Jen Ross-King was asked if, with the right information, Alex might not have taken so many pills.
“100%,” she said. “She was a smart kid.”
Ross-King said the service would give young people the insight to make a more informed decision.
“I know on her phone there were screenshots of her trying to find out information about MDMA but she didn’t know where to go, she didn’t know where to get it from and she certainly couldn’t come to me … I couldn’t have helped her,” she said.
“There are so many parents out there ill-equipped to answer questions, to have a decent conversation with young people about the effects of drugs, what drugs are out there, what does an overdose look like. We’re not equipped to do that.”
Ross-King was asked if she would urge other state governments and the federal government to follow the ACT and get behind fixed pill-testing sites.
“Absolutely. Next?” she said. “Get on board, let’s go, we’re ready, we know what we’re doing now.”
The ACT health minister, Rachel Stephen-Smith, said the pill-testing site, run by Directions Health Services, Pill Testing Australia and the Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy, would be evaluated after six months.
“Drug checking, also known as pill testing, provides a harm reduction service by analysing the contents of drugs to help people avoid the unknown and potentially dangerous substances that can occur in illicit drugs,” Stephen-Smith said.
“Harm reduction information, counselling and advice are provided to people who use the service, based on their specific test result and to encourage choices that lead to reduced drug use and harms associated with taking drugs.”
The service won’t be telling people the drugs are safe, she said, but it will let them know if something unexpected is in there.
Pill testing at the 2019 Groovin’ the Moo festival detected a highly toxic chemical associated with deaths overseas.
The Directions Health Services chief executive, Bronwyn Hendry, said the service was entirely confidential and non-judgmental, and was supported by the police as a harm reduction measure.
Drugs will also be specifically tested for fentanyl, and discarded drugs will be further tested. Dr David Caldicott, from Pill Testing Australia, said the service’s primary function was to save young people, but it would also act as an “observatory”, letting them know what was going on.
Fentanyl, for example, is cropping up in other opiates and in heroin, and is deadly even in tiny amounts. But it is not consistently monitored.
“The beauty here is we’ll have a fairly consistent monitoring program that will look for it,” Caldicott said.
“Is it here? Probably. It is causing mass casualties? Not at the moment. Does it have the capacity to do so? Absolutely.”
Australians have a safety blanket in the form of an antidote, Caldicott said, but if fentanyl established itself in the heroin market it would be very dangerous.
A report released last week by the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare found people in the ACT were the most likely to support pill testing, with 70% in favour.
Those in the Northern Territory were the least likely to support it, but 54% of people were still in favour. The national average of Australians supporting the measure was 57%.
CanTEST is at the City Community Health Centre, 1 Moore Street, Canberra. It will be open Thursdays from 9am to 1pm and Fridays from 6pm to 9pm.
