New Drug Checking Service

Free, legal drug checking is now available at regular community clinics in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

The clinics are provided by the Needle Exchange Services Trust (NEST) and run five days a week in Wellington and Christchurch, and four days a week in Dunedin. They’ve been made possible by a recent law change permitting licensed providers to offer regular or occasional checking clinics and by funding from the Addiction Commissioning team at Te Whatu Ora.

This is the first year that regular, ongoing drug checking has been available in the community – previously clinics were limited to festival or event checking clinics and occasional clinics in community settings.

Know Your Stuff NZ, and the New Zealand Drug Foundation are also licensed by the Ministry of Health Manatū Hauora to offer drug checking. They offer fortnightly or monthly clinics across the country for the public, but NEST’s Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin community clinics are the only regular scheduled clinics available multiple days a week.

“This provides much more certainty about when and where people can get their drugs checked,” says Jason George, the National Harm Reduction Lead at NEST.

“It’s a completely confidential service, we don’t ask for names or any other identifying information. It’s also free to use,” he says.

“This is a really important service that helps people find out what’s actually in their drugs – rather than what they’ve been told is in them. It also gives us an opportunity to have a conversation about staying safer while using drugs. That could be about the amount they are taking, about mixing different substances, such as MDMA and anti-depressants, or about safe injecting practices,” he says.

The location and time of all drug checking clinics offered by licensed providers, anywhere in New Zealand, are shown on the Know Your Stuff NZ website, the New Zealand Drug Foundation's The Level website as well as the NEST website. The NEST drug checking clinics are run from needle exchange outlets.

“Anyone who uses drugs is welcome to come and have them checked, not just people who inject drugs. We can’t tell them how pure their drugs are, but we can tell them what they have. They might find what they’ve bought wasn’t what they expected, and if that’s the case they can make an informed decision about their use,” Jason says.

Typically drug checking shows up to a third of drugs contained additional or different drugs from what the person thought they’d bought.

Recent research has shown that about two thirds of those using a drug checking clinic indicated they wouldn’t use their drugs, or would use them differently as a result of the information they received, proving the value of the drug checking clinics in reducing risk and harm.

The checking clinics use a spectrometer and reagents to test for the presence of most commonly consumed substances: methamphetamine, MDMA, opiates (including heroin), fentanyl and others. Testing will indicate if the drug is what it was represented to be, or if there are any other drugs mixed in with it.

Results are generally available within a few minutes, and the waiting time can be spent chatting about strategies for staying safer.

Drugs can have unexpected substances mixed in with them – ranging from other drugs to fillers intended to make people think they are getting more drugs than they are. Some of these fillers might seem innocuous but can be dangerous if injected or snorted. The sample may not even contain any of the substance the person thought they were buying.

“Quite a lot of people will ask us to destroy the drugs if they’re not what they’re supposed to be, while others say they will go ahead and take them anyway – but with the knowledge of what they contain. Some people even tell us they will take the drugs back to the person who sold them and ask for their money back. It’s not our job to push people into decisions, but we want them to have the facts so they can make an informed choice.”

“The new clinics have made drug checking very accessible and that’s a good thing for keeping people safe. People don’t have to wait long for a clinic where they can get their drugs checked, and that’s important for regular users,” Jason says.

Details of NEST’s drug checking clinics

• The Wellington clinic is open 12-7pm Tuesday to Friday & 1:15pm-4:45pm Saturday

at 233a Willis St, Wellington

• The Christchurch clinic is open 1-7pm Tuesday to Saturday

at 10 Washington Way, Christchurch

• The Dunedin clinic is open 12-6pm Wednesday to Saturday

at 278D King Edward Street, Dunedin

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