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DRUGS TESTING SERVICE: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
By Mike Power
03 October 2014
Welsh initiative WEDINOS is the UK’s first publicly funded drug testing service. It’s controversial, it’s not comprehensive, but it’s probably the most rational government approach to drug use for decades
Of all the problems caused by the uncontrolled, unregulated supply in recreational drugs that users face, which would you class as the worst? Would it be losing your job or your liberty if caught by the police or your employer? For some people, the shame of their family discovering they took drugs would be enough to get them disowned. Or is it economic: do you think drugs are too expensive because they have to be smuggled? Or do you have a problem with the morality of the drug trade?
It’s debatable, but by any measure, getting ill or dying because you’ve been sold something dodgy is the worst-case scenario. But imagine if you could know, with an unprecedented degree of accuracy, exactly what was in every powder or pill you bought?
Well, you can – and what’s more it’s free, legal, fast and run by the Welsh government. The service is called WEDINOS (Welsh Emerging Drugs And Identification Of Novel Substances), and its site, www.wedinos.org, is fast becoming an essential service for thousands of clued-up users.
One user of the service, known to us as Roma, says: “People want to know what they’re taking and to be safe (or rather, as safe as you can be on a drug). Nobody wants to get ripped off, and nobody wants to end up in hospital – or dead. Wedinos has brought quality analytical substance testing to the average person.”
Using WEDINOS (the acronym sounds like ‘after dark”, in Welsh) is fairly simple: anyone in the UK can submit samples. It’s funded by Public Health Wales and is attached to the University of Cardiff, and costs less than £100,000 a year to run. It started in October 2013, and was originally conceived by the forward-thinking Irish doctor, David Caldicott, who wanted drug users to be able to make informed choices. “It’s toxico-surveillance,” he tells us. “We’re better off knowing what is out there. And so are users.”
Since then, it has tested 1,559 samples, and 244 different drugs have been identified. The majority in the last three months were cocaine, followed by cutting agents such as caffeine, then synthetic cannabinoids, research chemicals and new drugs like mephedrone, and of course, MDMA.
continued here http://www.mixmag.net/features/knowledge-is-power
By Mike Power
03 October 2014
Welsh initiative WEDINOS is the UK’s first publicly funded drug testing service. It’s controversial, it’s not comprehensive, but it’s probably the most rational government approach to drug use for decades
Of all the problems caused by the uncontrolled, unregulated supply in recreational drugs that users face, which would you class as the worst? Would it be losing your job or your liberty if caught by the police or your employer? For some people, the shame of their family discovering they took drugs would be enough to get them disowned. Or is it economic: do you think drugs are too expensive because they have to be smuggled? Or do you have a problem with the morality of the drug trade?
It’s debatable, but by any measure, getting ill or dying because you’ve been sold something dodgy is the worst-case scenario. But imagine if you could know, with an unprecedented degree of accuracy, exactly what was in every powder or pill you bought?
Well, you can – and what’s more it’s free, legal, fast and run by the Welsh government. The service is called WEDINOS (Welsh Emerging Drugs And Identification Of Novel Substances), and its site, www.wedinos.org, is fast becoming an essential service for thousands of clued-up users.
One user of the service, known to us as Roma, says: “People want to know what they’re taking and to be safe (or rather, as safe as you can be on a drug). Nobody wants to get ripped off, and nobody wants to end up in hospital – or dead. Wedinos has brought quality analytical substance testing to the average person.”
Using WEDINOS (the acronym sounds like ‘after dark”, in Welsh) is fairly simple: anyone in the UK can submit samples. It’s funded by Public Health Wales and is attached to the University of Cardiff, and costs less than £100,000 a year to run. It started in October 2013, and was originally conceived by the forward-thinking Irish doctor, David Caldicott, who wanted drug users to be able to make informed choices. “It’s toxico-surveillance,” he tells us. “We’re better off knowing what is out there. And so are users.”
Since then, it has tested 1,559 samples, and 244 different drugs have been identified. The majority in the last three months were cocaine, followed by cutting agents such as caffeine, then synthetic cannabinoids, research chemicals and new drugs like mephedrone, and of course, MDMA.
continued here http://www.mixmag.net/features/knowledge-is-power
