CANTest, ACT Health Minister extends Canberra pill testing service
ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith has called on other state and territory governments to send their officials to Canberra to see its pill testing system.
Canberra Star
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The ACT’s Health Minister has called on other state and territory movements to send their officials to Canberra to see how their fixed-site pill testing pilot works.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith announced on Friday the CANTest pilot would be extended until early August following early signs of success.
The Australian-first facility was established in July last year and tested 371 samples in its first four months, with 15 per cent of samples being discarded by clients.
CANTest also discovered a new drug nicknamed “CanKet’ in October last year, and has also detected dangerous substances circulating in the territory such as cathinones and opioids.
“What CANTest has demonstrated is this service is well accepted in the community,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.
“It’s providing benefits for individuals … but it's also providing benefits for the wider community including police and health services.
“The identification of drugs that are out there in the community (provides) early warning to our police to our health services and to individuals thinking about using drugs.”
This extension of the CANtest pilot however has not secured the testing site’s future to October 2023 - when possession of small quantities of illicit drugs will be decriminalised in the ACT.
However Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy (CAHMA) executive director Chris Gough said if the final report into CANTest found the scheme was effective, CAHMA would “strongly advocate for the extension of CANTest” to October 2023 and beyond.
“The idea behind the move to decriminalise drugs in Canberra is to allow people who use drugs to feel safe to come forward to seek help with their drug use,” Mr Gough said.
“As many people who use drugs have experienced stigma and discrimination in healthcare services, we need harm-reduction services which are trusted by the community.”
According to an interim report into CANTest led by the Australian National University, 22 per cent of all people who used CANTest services in the first three months of the pilot program said they definitely would not take their drugs after they were tested.
This includes 61 per cent of people who discovered the drugs they purchased were not what they thought it was who said they “definitely would not take it”.
The interim report also states that 88 per cent per cent of CANTest clients were from Canberra, including 38 per cent from central Canberra.
Seven per cent of people who used the service were from NSW and 5 per cent were from states and territories other than NSW.
Meanwhile the NSW Government has retained a hard line stance against pill testing, with Deputy Premier Paul Toole stating in January last year that pill testing gives “false confidence” to drug users.
In 2019 NSW Deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame recommended the NSW government establish pill-testing following a coronial inquest into the drug related deaths of six young people at music festivals in the state between 2017-19.
Ms Grahame’s recommendation has not been implemented.
Ms Stephen-Smith said she was sharing outcomes from the CanTest with her counterparts in other states and territories.
“I really encourage them to send officials here to have a look at how it works and talk to people who are running this facility to understand exactly what it delivers,” she said.
“This is a particularly important service for those who may be naive or new drug users who have never spoken to anyone about the risks associated with drug taking.”
However the ACT still lags behind NSW and Victoria in some areas of harm reduction- namely the lack of safer injecting rooms in the territory.
Ms Stephen-Smith said choosing a location of an injection room was a challenge for the government.
“The obvious place would be in the city, but there’s not an obvious place where we would put it in the city,” she said.
“We don’t face the same issues that were faced in Melbourne or in Kings Cross in Sydney where injecting facilities were established (because) of very high obvious public levels of injecting drug use and people injecting on the streets and overdosing on the streets.”
Ms Stephen Smith said the government needed to consult further with people who use drugs to figure out what an injecting room service would look like.
Additionally, despite the establishment of CANTest and the service being opened for extended hours leading up to Spilt Milk festival, the ACT has not established pill testing services at music festivals.
“Drug checking was first rolled out in Australia in 2019 at Groovin’ in the Moo by Pill Testing Australia and the service evaluated very well,” Mr Gough said.
“Unfortunately last year Pill Testing Australia were unable to provide their drug checking service at Groovin’ in the Moo due to insurance issues.
“The ongoing issue of insurance for harm reduction services like drug checking services is a major barrier to service provision and this issue needs to be addressed by insurers, governments and harm reduction services.”
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