Synthetic drugs rise leads to urgent calls for state govt to open testing services

Authorities are being called on to open testing services urgently with a rise in more harmful synthetic – but cheaper – drugs on the market.

There are calls for drug checking facilities to warn users.

The state government should establish drug checking facilities to counter a steep rise in drugs circulating in the community that contain ­potentially deadly synthetic substances, experts say.

RMIT senior research fellow Monica Barratt said adulterated drugs cooked up in labs were often cheaper to make than the drugs they mimicked.

“Fentanyl and fentanyl analogs have been added to opioids, and are often added to or sold as heroin with devastating death tolls in North America,” Dr Barratt said.

“The reality of supply and demand for drugs means these adulterations and substitutions are going to continue to happen, especially as novel substances are typically more profitable.”

Synthetic drug use for medicinal purposes is becoming more prominent. Picture: Luka Kauzlaric

In 2021, the coroner recommended the state government adopt a checking system to tell users what substances their recreational drugs contained.

Dr Barratt, who gave evidence at the coronial inquest that led to the recommendation, said tests could quickly assess the content of drugs.

“Knowing whether drug samples contain unexpected novel synthetic substances gives the community and the government vital information it currently lacks,” she said.

“Drug checking services never tell someone that drugs are safe, they do the opposite. They demonstrate the variable quality across our drug markets and show people that they cannot simply trust claims made by sellers.”

Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association chief executive Sam Biondo said drug checking facilities were needed ­urgently to forewarn users.

The facilities, if established, would be different to proposals for pill testing at festivals.

Mr Biondo said reporting in the Herald Sun’s recent Narcos series on the global drug trade had highlighted that dangerous synthetic drugs were increasingly common.

Analysis by the coroners court showed 47 people died from overdoses of novel psychoactive drugs in 2021-22, rising from just three in 2017-18.

“As it stands in Victoria, we discover hazardous substances when people overdose, at morgues, or police seizures,” Mr Biondo said. “When we heard about a large fentanyl seizure last year, it had taken six months before the public was informed of this risk. We need something in real time, not six months down the track.

“We need to know about new hazardous substances hitting our shores before people have taken them.”

A spokeswoman said the state government took a health-led approach to alcohol and drug use and its $372m for alcohol and drug services in 2023-24 funded two initiatives that functioned as an “early warning system” to identify emerging harms.