Australia’s first government-backed pill testing clinic finds 40% of ‘cocaine’ contained no coke

Some people chose ‘not to consume the drugs they volunteered to have tested’, Associate Prof David Caldicott said. Photograph: LeszekCzerwonka/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Australia’s first government-backed pill and drug testing service has found a majority of samples were tainted with other substances, with nearly a third of people choosing to ditch their drugs after getting them checked.

In its first month of operation, Canberra’s fixed-site CanTest health and drug checking clinic examined 58 samples, with 18 people discarding their drugs once the results were in.