johnboy
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Oct 27, 1999
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Drug test kits on sale online
Jane Metlikovec
10mar06
YOUNG Victorians are hitting the internet and buying ecstasy pill testing kits that could put their safety at risk.
Melbourne group Enlighten Harm Reduction says there is an online sales boom in litmus test-style kits which chemically test the contents of ecstasy tablets.
"We have sold thousands of test kits since we began offering them in the last year," Enlighten founder Johnboy Davidson said.
"They are becoming more and more popular, especially during holiday periods."
Another retailer, EZ-test.com.au, said its online sales were steady.
Retailing for as little as $25 each, the kits can determine the key ingredients in a pill but cannot reveal the purity or quantity of the substances.
Ecstasy pills usually contain MDMA and amphetamines such as speed, but can also be laced with other dangerous chemicals, including the veterinary anaesthetic ketamine.
Mr Davidson said the limitations of personal test kits could be eliminated if the Federal Government agreed to approve a medically supervised trial of pill testing in venues.
He told Insight his group had been carrying out its own testing over the past few years.
It tests pills at four Victorian events every year, using specialised hi-tech testing kits not available to the public. [JB: not what I said. We have not yet publically used "high tech methods"]
Mr Davidson said the group did up to 200 pills in a session, with queues of people 10 deep. He said the tests only took 15 seconds and gave a complete reading of contents. [Did not say "complete reading". May have confused this with what I said about Ion Scanners, which we have not used publically yet]
Findings from the National Drug and Alcohol Centre's 2005 Party Drug Initiative show less than one quarter of ecstasy users would take the tablet if the result returned unknown ingredients.
Less than half those surveyed would take a pill containing ketamine.
After years of opposition, the nation's peak medical body, the Australian Medical Association, has recently supported calls for a legalised trial of event-based testing, citing a lack of Australian data on the usefulness of pill testing as a harm-minimisation strategy.
But both the State and Federal governments remain vehemently opposed to it.
State Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said the State Government would continue opposing pill testing.
A spokesman for Ms Pike said: "We are against pill testing because it gives legitimacy to illegal drug taking and because it sends out the wrong message that some pills are safe and some are not.
"We say all pills are unsafe and we have no plans to change our position any time soon."
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,18406663%5E2862,00.html
She got this almost right. 98%. Pretty good for the Hun. I'd bet that the first line came straight from the sub-editor, tho.