NSW’s first drug control pilot project will begin operating in an inner-city suburb from Monday, ahead of a much-anticipated Drug Summit promised later this year.
The program, colloquially known as pill testing, will run one day a week for around four months at the Medically Supervised Injecting Center (MSIC) in Kings Cross and will take samples from 100 volunteers.
Pilot participants must already be registered to use MSIC services, managed by Uniting NSW. ACT and provide a small amount of their pre-obtained medications for verification.
NSW’s first drug control pilot opened at the Medically Supervised Injecting Center (MSIC) in Kings Cross
The program, known as pill testing, will take samples from 100 volunteers, who will then receive an analysis of their substance.
They will then receive an analysis of their substance, which includes details of the mixture of drugs present, the purity of the substance, as well as targeted harm reduction advice.
The samples will also be sent to the NSW Health Pathology Forensic & Analytical Science Service for further confirmatory testing and drug composition analysis.
No legislation or government approval was required for the pilot program to begin, as it is a research project. However, the program has received approval from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Human Research Ethics Committee and the Western Sydney Local Health District (LHD).
MSIC medical director Marianne Jauncey said the main illicit drugs passing through the center were methamphetamine, heroin, followed by “a range of other substances”.
She says the study will analyze the desirability, feasibility and effectiveness of the tests, and determine whether drug control is capable of positively influencing people’s drug use behavior.
For example, whether detection of other substances will prevent users from taking those drugs.
“It will also improve surveillance of the illicit drug market, so that unexpected or very dangerous substances can be identified earlier, ideally before people use them,” Dr Jauncey said.
“NSW has reason to be concerned with drug markets becoming increasingly unpredictable post-Covid.”
She hopes the program will strengthen the argument for drug control, ahead of a yet-to-be-announced drugs summit, which NSW Health Minister Ryan Park has promised to ‘organize later this year.
“The reality is that people use drugs, inject drugs and die from them, and so anything we can to reduce harm has to be a good thing,” she said.
The program will study whether drug testing is able to positively influence people’s drug-taking behavior – particularly whether the detection of harmful substances prevents a user from taking these drugs.
The NSW Government has dissuaded any further policy announcements regarding drug reform until the Drug Summit. However, Health Minister Ryan Park has consistently said pill testing is not part of the government’s reform agenda and maintains that programs at music festivals are not a “silver bullet” against deaths. .
“I don’t think we should consider… that pill testing is a silver bullet that will protect everyone who goes to (a music festival),” Mr. Park told a budget estimates committee in FEBRUARY.
Unite New South Wales. ACT general manager of advocacy Emma Maiden said she believed NSW had a “tunnel view” of education, which created missed opportunities for “meaningful engagement” around harm reduction.
Ahead of last year’s summer music festival season, Uniting joined a host of other advocacy groups in calling on NSW Premier Chris Minns to implement pill testing measures, but this proposal was rejected.
“NSW was a leader 25 years ago, I think it’s fair to say we are no longer,” Ms Maiden said.
“In Australia and around the world, we are seeing governments adopt different attitudes to drug laws in order to reduce harm.”
Nationally, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is the only jurisdiction with a fixed drug testing center, but the Queensland Government has announced that a fixed site in the Bowen Hills region of Brisbane is expected to open later this month.
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