Forty Percent Of Cocaine Submitted In Australia’s First Pill Testing Lab Was… Not Cocaine
Average cocaine purity detected by researchers was as low as 27 percent.
Australia’s first pill testing clinic released its initial findings after its first month in operation yesterday, revealing shockingly low levels of purity in some of the illicit drugs tested.
CanTEST — a fixed-site pill testing facility based in Canberra — has been testing the purity of a range of illicit substances in a six month pilot program that began last month. A snapshot of the centre’s first month of findings has revealed some damming statistics about the purity of illicit drugs in Australia.
Cocaine purity was as low as 27 percent, with 40 percent of samples presented to the centre containing no cocaine at all. MDMA purity ranged between 23 percent and 65 percent in capsule form, with the centre finding foreign additives such as βk-2C-B (colloquially referred to as ‘tripstasy’ for having the effects of both LSD and ecstasy) and caffeine in samples presented as MDMA.
By way of thanks to all who used our CanTEST service in our first month, here’s a snapshot of what we’ve found.
Face-to-face testing, representing best practice in Australia, with even a higher rate of discard than at our festivals.https://t.co/O65omPWdgG pic.twitter.com/bpqb2dIcaB— David Caldicott (@ACTINOSProject) August 24, 2022
Ketamine purity ranged from 39 percent to 79 percent, with one sample even containing the mysterious and potentially dangerous ‘designer drug’ fluorexetamine.
Of the 58 drug samples submitted for testing, 18 samples were discarded by their owners after receiving their results. Stephanie Stephens, Acting CEO of Directions ACT — the organisation behind CanTEST — says that the results reflect a public desire for grounded knowledge about illicit drugs.
“It shows us that people are actively seeking out information from a trusted, non-judgemental source to reduce risks to their health,” Stephens told ABC.
Researchers have also expressed their relief after the presence of the dangerous opioid, fentanyl, remained undetected in all drugs tested at the facility, with CanTest researcher Associate Professor David Caldicott viewing the results as “good news”.
“To date we have tested 15 samples for traces of fentanyl, with none showing signs of these dangerous and potent synthetic opiates,” Associate Professor Caldicott said. “The fact that fentanyl derivatives were not present in any of the samples test is very good news, given these dangerous and potent synthetic opiates have ravaged North America.”
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