Drug purity has been put to the test at Australia's first fixed-site pill and drug testing clinic in Canberra.
The ACT government launched the six-month pilot program last month in a bid to minimise drug-related harm.
ACT Directions Health Services Acting CEO Stephanie Stephens said the last month had shown that people would discard drugs that contained unexpected or dangerous substances.
"Since CanTEST opened its doors, our staff have provided 70 health and alcohol and other drugs brief interventions to people who attended the service," she said.
"That is significant when you consider how new the service is and that it is only open three hours each Thursday and Friday."
Ms Stephens said 58 drug samples were collected by CanTEST, 18 of those samples were discarded after the owners were made aware of their contents.
"It shows us that people are actively seeking out information from a trusted, non-judgemental source to reduce risks to their health," she said.
What did the clinic find in the drug samples?
Five samples of what was expected to be cocaine were tested with only three detecting the actual drug.
Overall purity levels for cocaine were below 27 per cent.
One cocaine sample was found to contain dimethyl sulfone, a drug used for pain relief and as an anti-inflammatory.
The sample that was collected the most in the clinic's first month was methylenedioxymethamphetamine, more commonly known as MDMA or ecstasy.
CanTEST examined 19 samples suspected to be the drug, with 13 of them detecting MDMA.
The purity of the drug varied depending on its methods of consumption — three out of four tested pressed pills contained a purity of between 9-21 per cent, while four of the seven capsules tested contained a purity of between 23-64 per cent.
All six samples collected of heroin all returned a positive result with a 31-63 per cent purity recorded.
Three of the four samples expected to be methamphetamine recorded traces of the drug. The crystalline methamphetamine sample that recorded no methamphetamine was identified to be sugar.
Fentanyl, a potent and addictive opioid, was not detected in any of the samples taken at CanTEST.
Service to grow
Ms Richards hoped CanTEST was helping users of the free service make informed choices once they were made aware of what their drug really contained.
"Drug checking is also creating new opportunities to have meaningful discussions about health and safety with people who intend to use drugs," she said.
"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."
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.
