A Guide to Drug Checking in Australia

Are drug checking and pill testing the same?

The terms ‘drug checking’ and ‘pill testing’ are often used interchangeably to refer to services that chemically analyse and provide information about drugs. However, the term drug checking is preferred to emphasise the fact that many types of drugs can be tested, not just pills and party drugs. While drugs like MDMA, ketamine, and cocaine are more commonly tested, services can also test heroin, opioids, and methamphetamine.

Where can I get drugs tested in Australia?

Drug checking is very new in Australia, and the available services are often changing. At the time of writing, the only fixed-site drug checking service is CanTEST in Canberra. However, multiple organisations offer on-site drug checking services at music festivals across Australia. These organisations are expanding to offer services at more music festivals across different states and territories.

CanTEST

CanTEST is a free, confidential drug checking and health service. CanTEST is open two days a week and is located in Canberra City. It offers the most comprehensive drug checking service in Australia, with on-site FTIR, UPLC, test strips, and reagent testing, as well as several harm reduction, peer, and healthcare workers.¹ CanTEST is operated by Directions Health Services and CAHMA with technical assistance by Pill Testing Australia.

Music Festivals

Pill Testing Australia and The Loop run on-site drug checking services at multiple music festivals in the ACT, Queensland, NSW, and Victoria in partnership with local harm reduction organisations.^2,3 An on-site drug checking service is a private space at a festival with harm reduction and peer workers, as well as chemical analysts using FTIR, test strips, and reagent testing.³ To see whether drug checking is offered at a festival you are attending, check the festival website/socials, your local harm reduction organisation’s website/socials, or Pill Testing Australia and The Loop.

Other Services

A fixed-site drug checking service is scheduled to open in Melbourne in 2025.² Queensland trialled two fixed-site drug checking services called CheQpoint which were unfortunately closed in April 2025.⁴ Drug checking is rapidly evolving and new services are often being trialled, such as on-site testing at Sydney’s Medically Supervised Injecting Centre.²

Important Drug Checking Facts

• All the drug checking services mentioned in this article are free and confidential.
• Only a very small sample is required for testing (e.g., a couple milligrams of powder, part of a pill or blotter etc.).
• Drug checking services will not dispose of your drugs (other than the small amount required for testing) unless you ask them to.
• Testing usually takes 5-30 minutes depending on the sample and the type of drug checking technology used.
• Police support harm minimisation efforts including drug checking and needle and syringe programs (NSPs).^5-7
• No drug checking service in Australia accepts samples via post.

Drug Checking Technology

FTIR

FTIR stands for Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy. It is a method that uses infrared light to quickly identify chemical substances. Every chemical substance has a unique fingerprint when exposed to infrared light. When you put a drug sample in an FTIR machine, it records the unique fingerprint and matches it to a library to identify the drug.

An FTIR machine. Link to source.

FTIR is portable, quick and easy to perform, which is why it is optimal for on-site drug checking at festivals. However, it does not always provide the most accurate results. FTIR can generally only identify the major component of a sample and struggles with mixtures or impurities. Most FTIR machines also cannot estimate the purity of a sample.

UPLC

UPLC stands for Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography. It is an advanced method that can identify and estimate the purity of samples. The drug sample is passed down a column to separate it into its components (e.g., the drug(s), impurities, adulterants, binding agents, or fillers). The different chemical substances in the sample travel through the column at different speeds like a chemical running race. At the end of the race, ultraviolet and visible light is shone through each component. The software then uses this information identify and quantify each component of the sample.

A UPLC machine. Link to source.

UPLC is slow and expensive, which is why it is only available at fixed-site services such as CanTEST. However, it provides more accurate results than FTIR and works well for mixtures or samples with lots of impurities.

Fentanyl Test Strips

FTIR and UPLC struggle with substances that are present in very small amounts (e.g., only a few micrograms). Fentanyl is active at very small doses and poses a massive risk to people if they are not expecting to consume it.

Fentanyl test strips. Link to source.

Fentanyl test strips are very sensitive strips that can tell you whether fentanyl or similar drugs are present in a sample, even in tiny amounts. They essentially work the same way as a RAT test for COVID, giving a yes or no answer. Unlike FTIR and UPLC, fentanyl test strips are available to use at home and can be purchased online.

Ehrlich Reagent

Ehrlich reagent is a chemical dropper test that helps identify psychedelics like LSD and DMT. A small drop of the reagent is placed on a sample which will change colour if LSD or similar chemicals are present. Ehrlich is good for testing blotter paper as it will change colour if LSD is present but will not change colour for more harmful substances like 25x-NBOMe or DOx. Unlike FTIR and UPLC, Ehrlich reagent is available to use at home and can be purchased online.

What can I get tested?

Most substances in pills, capsules, powders, crystals, liquids and blotters can be tested.¹

Things that are difficult to test

• Plants & fungi—organic material like cannabis and magic mushrooms can’t be tested. Testing these requires chemical extraction of the psychoactive components, which fixed-site and on-site drug checking services aren’t equipped to do.
• Benzos—benzodiazepines like Xanax (alprazolam) or Valium (diazepam) are difficult to test because they are often pressed into pills with very small doses (e.g. 2-5 milligrams). Most hardware, including UPLC, are only sensitive enough to detect the pill binding agents but not the drug itself. The same is true for other pills that contain only very small doses of a drug.
• Oil-based solutions (e.g., some steroids or extracts)—most hardware is only equipped to detect dry samples or water-based solutions. Oil-based solutions such as testosterone esters can be difficult to test. FTIR may be able to detect the major component, but this is often just the solvent (e.g. vegetable oil or benzyl alcohol).⁸ The same is true for many oil-based plant extracts. In contrast, pure liquids like GHB/1,4-B/GBL are usually suitable for testing.

How do I interpret the results?

Drug checking services are only able to provide the identity of a substance with varying degrees of confidence, whether certain adulterants such as fentanyl are present, and sometimes an estimate of the purity. Taking drugs always carries risks, and services are not able to say whether a drug is safe.

Identity of the Drug

FTIR generally identifies 1-3 chemical substances in a sample with a corresponding confidence score. Usually, only the major component (the first substance listed) is accurate. This can be an issue if the major component is just a filler or binding agent, meaning the actual drug is not detected. This also means FTIR usually cannot estimate purity or verify whether adulterants are present in a sample.

FTIR is a great tool to quickly identify substances, but sometimes it makes mistakes. It can match the chemical fingerprint to the wrong substance or miss things altogether. This is why the results come with a score for how confident the machine is. Only high confidence results should be trusted until something more sensitive like UPLC can be used.

UPLC can detect multiple chemical substances in a sample with greater confidence than FTIR. Hence, it can determine whether impurities or adulterants other than the desired drug are present. It can also estimate purity for some common substances.

Both FTIR and UPLC cannot identify unusual substances that have not been detected before. This usually requires sending the sample to a lab with more advanced equipment, which some drug checking services such as CanTEST can do.

Purity of the Drug

Some drug checking services such as CanTEST can provide purity estimates for common drugs.

UPLC (and some more expensive FTIR machines) can estimate purity for common drugs including MDMA, ketamine, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine among others. The purity estimate is almost always given as a freebase purity. This is so that all results are standardised, and because drug checking technology cannot detect salts.

Most drugs can be in the form of a freebase or salt (such as hydrochloride, sulfate, or hydrobromide). Drugs are almost always sold in their salt form because it is more soluble in water and better absorbed. However, some drugs that are smoked (e.g. crack cocaine, DMT) are sold as freebase.

Cocaine freebase vs cocaine hydrochloride (HCl). The molecules differ at the part highlighted in red. Link to source.

When a drug enters a UPLC column, the salt portion is washed away and undetected, so only the freebase purity can be estimated. This makes most drugs seem less pure than they are since the weight of the salt is not accounted for. For example, this is why people say the “maximum purity” of MDMA is only 84%. They are referring to the fact that 100% pure MDMA in salt form only measures as 84% in freebase purity, with the remaining 16% representing the hydrochloride salt.

Below is a table showing the approximate freebase purity corresponding to a 100% pure drug in salt form.

Drug in Salt Form	Maximum Freebase Purity
MDMA hydrochloride	84%
Ketamine hydrochloride	87%
Cocaine hydrochloride	89%
Methamphetamine hydrochloride	81%
Heroin hydrochloride	91%

This also means that drug checking services cannot determine which salt a sample is (e.g., amphetamine sulfate vs amphetamine hydrochloride), since neither FTIR nor UPLC can detect salts.

References

[1] https://cantest.com.au/about/

[2] https://www.theloop.org.au/welcome

[3] https://pilltestingaustralia.com.au/Festival%20Drug%20Checking%20Services/

[4] https://www.instagram.com/p/DHZ6utSyZPF/

[5] https://police.act.gov.au/community-safety/alcohol-and-drugs/cantest-illicit-drug-testing-service

[6] https://qnada.org.au/pill-testing-for-queensland/

[7] https://www.police.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-12/379729_VicPol_Drug%20Strategy_v31.pdf

[8] https://doi.org/10.1210/clinem/dgab772

Written by Darcy Lynch