The availability of pill-testing services influences ecstasy users to reduce their consumption of the drug. It does not stimulate young people to start taking ecstasy. Information about the risks of the drug is accepted by users as more credible when it is provided as part of a testing programme. These are some findings from a European study carried out in 2001 and 2002 at large dance parties in Hanover, Vienna and Amsterdam at the request of the European Commission.
A total of 700 partygoers were surveyed. They included non-users of ecstasy, users who never had their ecstasy pills tested (non-testers) and users who did have their pills tested (testers). The three-city study was conducted by the University of Amsterdam, in cooperation with the drugs awareness agency Jellinek Prevention for the Amsterdam part of the study. Testers were found to have more knowledge about ecstasy and to behave more safely than non-testers; this was clearly an influence of the pill-testing, and did not derive from personality differences. Testers also warned their friends when pills were on the market that had tested risky.
The pill-testing services also make it easier to reach new groups of young people for drug education purposes. Testing further provides a new means of monitoring the ecstasy market. No evidence was found to confirm popular apprehensions that pill-testing induces non-users to try ecstasy. In fact, the presence of testing facilities was more likely to deter susceptible young people from starting to take the drug.
A total of 242 partygoers were questioned in Amsterdam. Some 63% of the testers rated the drug education function of the testing services as 'highly important'; 95.2% were satisfied with the information and advice they received from the test workers. They rated pill-testing services as the most trustworthy of all sources of information, more credible than drug education leaflets, Internet, newspapers and friends. Three quarters of the ecstasy purchases by both testers and non-testers took place in private places, almost always in the homes of friends or acquaintances. Only 6% of the users bought their ecstasy on the streets or at a party; others had the drug delivered at home.
The Dutch, German and Austrian testing services are different. In Hanover, a bus with quick-testing facilities is parked outside large dance parties. In Austria, testing is performed inside the parties using advanced equipment that can identify different types and strengths of drugs within 20 minutes. In the Netherlands, testing is no longer provided at parties, but in walk-in facilities that are run mostly by addiction services. Testing is available at 26 different venues in the Netherlands. As well as having their drugs tested, drug users receive face-to-face information there. The organisations also initiate health warning campaigns whenever they detect dangerous pills on the market.
The full report has just been published in English and German and can be ordered at
www.rozenbergps.com <
http://www.rozenbergps.com/>
Further details: Jaap Jamin, Jellinek Prevention T: +3120-5702355
Dr Dirk Korf, University of Amsterdam T: +3120-5253930
Dr Manfred Rabes, Hanover T: +49511-626266613
