FDS Insight Magazine Aug - Oct 2022

12 Australia’s first fixed pill-testing site opens in ACT J. Attwooll¸ newsGP (20/7/22) The Chair of RACGP Specific Interests Addiction Medicine has welcomed the ‘highly significant’ launch, which is part of a six-month trial. The ACT has previously had pill-testing facilities put in place temporarily. ‘It would be great for us all around Australia to have access to this.’ That is the reaction of Dr Hester Wilson, Chair of RACGP Specific Interests Addiction Medicine, as the first fixed site pill-testing site in Australia opens in the ACT. Run by ACT Health, the CanTEST Health and Drug Checking Service opens on 21 July and will operate on Thursdays and Fridays in central Canberra for a six-month trial. It will be operated by Directions Health Services, a community organisation for people impacted by alcohol, drugs and other addictions, offering pill testing, harm reduction advice and drop-in nurse consultations for general health, sexual health and mental health. Its launch is a development that Dr Wilson unequivocally welcomes. ‘It’s highly significant,’ she told newsGP. ‘ACT has led the way with providing pills and substance safety checking at festivals. I think this is such an important aspect of harm minimisation for people who use substances.’ Dr Wilson says its introduction acknowledges the reality that people will keep taking illicit substances, regardless of the law. ‘That will continue but what we want to do is to allow that to continue safely,’ she said. The additional services offering support and information including referral options for people who may come to harm due to drug use are particularly welcome, according to Dr Wilson. ‘It’s a really great way of engaging with people who are using drugs, to assist them to do that more safely and to look at the issues in their lives that might be driving the drug use,’ she said. The testing site can also help address the issue of drugs being mis-sold, according to Dr Wilson – an issue she says can have deadly consequences.