Why is pill testing even a debate?

C

climberman

Likes Dirt
Binaural said:
If your pill costs $50 and you pay a similar amount for testing, how many people are going to risk it?
Click to expand...
$50 a pill? Are you as old as me and paying this much in 1992?

Pills are not this price anymore. Think $10-$25.

A group of kids might have quite a few pills between them and be happy to sacrifice one or part of one, or at least have been to date where used in Oz, eg ACT, or in the decades of pill testing in Europe.
 
redbruce

redbruce

Eats Squid
Freediver said:
Hire of the spectrometre and other scientific equipment wouldn''t be that huge as these machines aren't that expensive to buy they are low tens of thousands not hundreds of thousands, you could pick up all the gear you need of ebay with change from 20K if you wanted to be a tightarse about it.
Who cares what it costs anyway if the promoter is the one paying for it which of course means it's the punters themselves when it's added to ticket prices.
Click to expand...
Speaking as a senior chemist that runs a large research laboratory: the equipment has to fit the purpose. A suitable IR spectro is $50K, not including (ongoing) cost of calibration databases. Forget the iphone IR idea, you get what you pay for: low specificity, resolution, sensitivity and poor detection limits. If you want to quantify components, and identify all possible adulterants and contaminants, sophisticated equipment is required and they are more like $400 - 500K. Both need proficient and skilled operators. The reality is you are testing an unknown substance, a better analogy is a racing drug laboratory. What the results actually mean is another thing.

There are more scholarly scientific papers on the subject of analytical pill testing and interpretation but this gives good layperson version.

Drug checking and pill testing – what it can and cannot do and why it matters. | Global Drug Survey

Global Drug Survey runs the biggest drug survey in the world
www.globaldrugsurvey.com www.globaldrugsurvey.com

None the less, my view is there should be such a service available, but as a part of a more comprehensive program. Pill testing alone is unlikely to make much difference. We have drink/drug drive testing and education to reduce probability of road trauma and consequences for the community, same should apply here. However Like drink/drive, there needs to be legal consequences underpinning it.
 
Last edited:
indica

indica

Serial flasher

A great philosopher once wrote
Naughty, naughty, very naughty
Ha ha ha ha ha
There's a guy in the place who's got a bittersweet face
And he goes by the name of Ebeneezer Goode
His friends call him 'Ezeer and he is the main geezer
And he'll vibe up the place like no other man could
He's refined, sublime, he makes you feel fine
Though very much maligned and misunderstood
But if you know 'Ezeer he's a real crowd pleaser
He's ever so good, he's Ebeneezer Goode
You can see that he's mischievous, mysterious and devious
When he circulates amongst the people in the place
But once you know he's fun, and something of a genius
He gives a grin that goes around from face to face to face
Backwards and then forwards, forwards and then backwards
'Eezer is the geezer who loves to muscle in
That's about the time the crowd all shout the name of 'Eezer
As he's kotcheled in the corner, laughing by the bass bin
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
"Has anyone got any Vera's?"
Lovely Ya Ha Ha Ha
A Great Philospher once wrote
Naughty Naughty, Very Naughty
Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ebeneezer Goode, leading light of the scene, know what I mean?
He created the vibe - He takes you for a ride as if by Design
The party ignites like it's comin' alive
He takes you to the top, shakes you all around
Then back down - you know as he gets mellow
Then as smooth as the groove that is making you move
He glides into your mind with a sunny "Hello!"
A gentleman of leisure he's there for your pleasure
But go easy on old 'Ezeer he's the love you could lose
Extraordinary fellow, like Mr Punchinello
He's the kind of geezer who must never be abused
When you're in town and Ebeneezer is around
You can sense a presence in the sound of the crowd
He gets them all at it, the party starts rocking, the people get excited
It's time to shout loud
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode
'Eezer Goode 'Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
"Got any salmon Sorted"
Ha ha ha ha ha
Ha ha ha ha ha
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
Oh what a carry on, ha ha ha ha ha
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
Wicked
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Oh what a carry on, ha ha ha ha ha
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
Wicked
Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
He's Ebeneezer Goode
Click to expand...
 
fatboyonabike

fatboyonabike

Captain oblivious
And we wonder why more and more people are turning to cocaine, with no viable drug testing available from the establishment , this has got to be a bonus for the kiddies
Good work Gladys, you fucking stupid witch
 
hifiandmtb

hifiandmtb

Sphincter beanie
I know so many people who use cocaine. And I don't hang around with people you'd associate with taking cocaine.

Is it the new cigarettes???
 
Ultra Lord

Ultra Lord

Hurts. Requires Money. And is nerdy.
hifiandmtb said:
I know so many people who use cocaine. And I don't hang around with people you'd associate with taking cocaine.

Is it the new cigarettes???
Click to expand...
Nose beers are the new beers.

so many people railing lines, it’s nuts how casual people are getting about it now.
 
nzhumpy

nzhumpy

Googlemeister who likes bikes and scandal
hifiandmtb said:
I know so many people who use cocaine. And I don't hang around with people you'd associate with taking cocaine.

Is it the new cigarettes???
Click to expand...
I wouldn't go as far as the new ciggies just because of cost ...but go into any toilet on a Thursday/Mondy arvo in the city about 3.30 and the air is thick with the stuff
 
Binaural

Binaural

Eats Squid
redbruce said:
There are more scholarly scientific papers on the subject of analytical pill testing and interpretation but this gives good layperson version.

Drug checking and pill testing – what it can and cannot do and why it matters. | Global Drug Survey

Global Drug Survey runs the biggest drug survey in the world
www.globaldrugsurvey.com www.globaldrugsurvey.com
Click to expand...
That link you posted is pretty reasonable to both sides of the debate, and suggests even my estimate of the likely costs is well on the low side. One of the most salient points is that doing the drug testing properly is very risky, as no mobile lab is really going to be able analyse an unknown substance fully enough in a time frame acceptable to people attending a festival or whatever. I guess I still feel uncomfortable with the government acting as the QC for drug manufacturers (including heroin and meth, for all the talk of pills), rather than doing the hard work of building a deregulation or decriminalisation framework to improve drug safety.
 
Dozer

Dozer

Heavy machinery.
Staff member
Binaural said:
Drug testing properly is very risky, as no mobile lab is really going to be able analyse an unknown substance fully enough in a time frame acceptable to people attending a festival or whatever.
Click to expand...
I wondered this and thought the only way to distribute a safe option would be to brew a clean batch, bag it with recognizable packaging for distribution, advertise it's for sale then sell it at the event.

My current mindset on pill testing is it's the current trend for people with no fucking clue to talk about. I'm hearing farmer Ted come into my work and say his piece on it after he talks about the weather, I'm getting people that are too young to have even gotten drunk talk about it like its a cool thing to take drugs 'cause they'd be safe now if they were tested and I've even had one girl tell me she'll start going to music festivals so she can sample what MDMA is all about. For fucks sake, what a joke.
 
Binaural

Binaural

Eats Squid
Dozer said:
I wondered this and thought the only way to distribute a safe option would be to brew a clean batch, bag it with recognizable packaging for distribution, advertise it's for sale then sell it at the event.
Click to expand...
Every step closer to the customer you get, the less effective and more expensive quality control becomes. In some forms of relatively high-risk engineering manufacturing, we talk about the swiss-cheese model of quality control, or the importance of each step in the process being carefully quality controlled in its own right. You reduce your risk at each stage, and harm only comes to your customer in very rare cases where the holes in each slice of swiss cheese align. True quality comes from a mixture of design controls, manufacturing controls, supply chain controls, labelling etc.

Another way to put it - you can't test in quality that you didn't build or design into the product in the first place. From a process perspective, it's moronic and doomed to failure to try and ensure drug quality by last-minute testing labs. The costs of having no upstream quality controls will be extremely costly in lives and in dollars. We shouldn't accept token harm reduction when better options could be on the table.
 
Oddjob

Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
Binaural said:
Every step closer to the customer you get, the less effective and more expensive quality control becomes. In some forms of relatively high-risk engineering manufacturing, we talk about the swiss-cheese model of quality control, or the importance of each step in the process being carefully quality controlled in its own right. You reduce your risk at each stage, and harm only comes to your customer in very rare cases where the holes in each slice of swiss cheese align. True quality comes from a mixture of design controls, manufacturing controls, supply chain controls, labelling etc.

Another way to put it - you can't test in quality that you didn't build or design into the product in the first place. From a process perspective, it's moronic and doomed to failure to try and ensure drug quality by last-minute testing labs. The costs of having no upstream quality controls will be extremely costly in lives and in dollars. We shouldn't accept token harm reduction when better options could be on the table.
Click to expand...
I don't see it as a binary option. Pill testing even if its non-comprehensive but only for common nasties like lsd, pma etc is better than no testing. Decriminalisation and regulation are better again.

Some harm minimisation is better than the total shit show we're seeing now. Drug overdose deaths at dance parties were unheard of until Anna Wood in 1995 (I have a vague recollection of that rave) and its not as if mdma and acid hadn't been around for decades beforehand. Even after that deaths at dance parties were few and far between until recently. Clearly something has changed in the drug trade or consumption habits.

Most people who try party drugs give them up eventually. They develop resistance to the drugs and have to take ever more to get high. The resulting comedowns make functioning impossible so its usually an easy choice. But we need to try and give young people long enough to wise up without killing themselves. We also need to have better conversations with people who are having trouble 'choosing life' to borrow a line.
 
indica

indica

Serial flasher
Dozer said:
My current mindset on pill testing is it's the current trend for people with no fucking clue to talk about
Click to expand...
Yes, fair call on that one. I am still all for it, but I am all for legalisation and regulation of the lot. And you know where I work Dozer.
I guess the other benefit of the pill testing is it opens people up to support services and also can lead to them feeling comfortable getting their friends help and not feeling like the cops are going to get them.
Funnily enough some of the cases being reviewed had people dying because the quality / quantity of mdma was so high.
 
K

Kerplunk

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Oddjob said:
Most people who try party drugs give them up eventually. They develop resistance to the drugs and have to take ever more to get high. The resulting comedowns make functioning impossible so its usually an easy choice. But we need to try and give young people long enough to wise up without killing themselves. We also need to have better conversations with people who are having trouble 'choosing life' to borrow a line.
Click to expand...
From the kiddies I have spoken to the way they take pills now is different to back in the 90’s. Kids bring 20-30 pills to a multi-day festival like falls. Because they are so cheap they double and triple drop as the norm. Part of that most likely, as you said, is built up resistance.. Imagine what happens taking 3 shit pills in one hit, especially if they are just K or turn out to be high purity mdma..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top