Drug testing in Canberra has uncovered three new recreational drugs, including one similar to the potentially fatal “bath salts”.
More than half of the drugs tested at the CanTEST fixed-site facility were not what the user was expecting, and some were drugs not previously seen in Australia.
Three new psychoactive substances – or synthetic drugs mimicking existing ones, such as cocaine, heroin or MDMA – were brought into CanTEST, where on-site testing was inconclusive. These were then sent for laboratory testing and analysis by an Australian National University team of chemists.
ANU’s Prof Malcolm McLeod, CanTEST’s chemistry lead, said a client submitted a substance they thought was a derivative of the ADHD drug Ritalin, a stimulant. But it turned out to be a new variant of cathinone, or bath salts.
“Although there are a range of cathinone variants circulating in the community, finding a new one is obviously of concern because we don’t know how it will affect people or what the health consequences are,” he said.
A second substance, which the client thought was ketamine-like, was a new type of benzylpiperazine, a euphoric drug often used as a substitute for MDMA (ecstasy). The third client thought the substance they had might be a cathinone, but the chemists found it was a new phenethylamine drug known as propylphenidine, another stimulant.
The analysis has been published in the latest issue of the journal Drug Testing and Analysis.
“Drug checking services are perhaps one of the most likely places where truly novel products are likely to first present and are situated in an environment where appropriate, prudent advice can be provided, even in scenarios where an agent might not yet be identified,” the authors wrote.
“In the same way that emerging infectious disease monitoring networks can gain valuable time in the early identification of strains of particularly virulent agents, drug checking can be the first opportunity to identify agents of potential and particular harm.”
CanTEST and Pill Testing Australia clinical lead, Dr David Caldicott, said CanTEST workers were able to immediately notify the drug-using community about the new substances and warn about their risks.
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“It turns out that drug checking services can not only change the behaviours of consumers, but when done rigorously, can also identify totally novel drugs as they emerge, and possibly even before they get a hold on local markets,” he said.
“This is potentially of huge public health importance, not just to Canberra, but to the rest of the world, and has probably not been fully appreciated to date.”
In 2022, CanTEST detected another new drug that had not been seen in Australia before, and a dangerous opioid being falsely sold as oxycodone, which triggered a public health alert.
Caldicott called on other states and territories to follow Canberra’s lead and roll out drug checking services.
There were also renewed calls for a nationwide pill testing regime last week after nine people were hospitalised with suspected MDMA overdoses at a Melbourne music festival. They all suffered severe hyperthermia from a combination of drug use, hot conditions and physical exertion.
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