The nation's first fixed-site pill and drug testing clinic will open its doors in the ACT on Thursday, in a bid to reduce the harm caused by drugs.
The CanTEST Health and Drug Checking Service will be located in Canberra's CBD and will offer the free, confidential testing of drugs.
The clinic has been opened by the ACT government as part of a six-month trial and is backed by Pill Testing Australia, Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy and lead partner Directions Health Services.
How will Canberra's pill testing work?
Potential drug users will have the ability to have their drugs chemically analysed at the fixed-site facility, which will also provide drop-in clinic amenities such as general, sexual and mental health consultations.
The process to have drugs tested takes up to 15 minutes and the clinic will be open to the public on Thursday during the day — between 10am and 1pm — and Friday night — between 6pm and 9pm — each week.
The clinic — located in the City Community Health Centre at 1 Moore Street — will not confiscate any drugs it tests but will provide advice about potentially dangerous substances in illicit drugs and give potential users the opportunity to bin the drugs.
Those who attend the clinic also sign a waiver stating that they have been informed of the contents of their drugs.
While the service is the nation's first fixed-site pill testing clinic, the ACT played host to pop-up pill testing at the Groovin' The Moo music festival in 2018 and 2019.
The most recent trial, in 2019, tested 171 substances and found seven contained the potentially deadly n-ethylpentylone.
All but one of those who were told their drugs contained the dangerous substance dumped them in amnesty bins provided, while one person said they planned to dump it.
Minister for Health Rachel Stephen-Smith said the fixed-testing site was borne from an "evidence-based" harm minimisation approach to drug use.
"The ACT is leading the nation with our progressive approach in treating drug use as a health issue and working with trusted community partners to reduce drug-related harms," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
Directions Health Services CEO Bronwyn Hendry said they had chosen to open the site on two days at different times as a way of providing the service to as many different "target populations" as possible.
"We wanted to make sure the service was inclusive for everyone," she said.
She said people who accessed the clinic for other reasons during business hours would be able to get drugs tested during the day on Thursday.
"So it will be most convenient for them to come and get, for instance, heroin tested or methamphetamine or anything else they're intending to inject or ingest," she said.
Ms Hendry said she did believe that people would go out of their way to use the service in the dedicated hours.
"I mean, there is opportunistic drug purchasing, I guess. But for the most part, people are pretty organised," she said.
But she said as time went on, there would also be scope to consider extending the site's opening hours.
'She didn't know where to go'
Jen Ross-King, whose daughter Alex died in 2019 after taking an overdose of MDMA, declared the site's opening as a welcome step forward.
"What this service does and what these guys are doing is providing an insight for these young people to be able to make a bit more of an informed decision and choice about what they're going to do," Ms Ross-King said.
"Preferably they don't do it at all, but I think we know that that's not the case and that people are going to take drugs."
She said her daughter had been trying to find out more information about the drug she was planning to take before her death.
Ms Ross-King said people looking to take drugs were not stupid and wanted to make informed decisions.
"They're just young people that are experimenting ... A rite of passage," she said.
"They're having a conversation with someone who is credible, not their parents, and saving their lives."
She urged other Australian governments to follow the ACT's lead and adopt their own pill testing facilities.
"Get on board. Let's go. We're ready," Ms Ross-King said.
'No one wants to see young lives lost'
In June, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre data found ACT had the highest rate of drug-induced deaths per capita in the country.
Harm Reduction Australia & Pill Testing Australia president Gino Vumbaca believed the site was an important public health breakthrough for the territory.
"As Australia's first and only organisation to deliver pill-testing services, we hope this will be the start of a national acceptance and roll-out of our services."
