FDS Insight Newsletter Jul-Sep 2020

41 ‘Some of the users had already tried the substance and knew something wasn’t quite right with it but didn’t know what. None of us – the students, the dealers or the testing team – expected it to be this new ketamine analogue though. It makes me wonder what else is in circulation that could be causing harm to people all across the UK.’ Drug-related deaths in Britain are at record levels, with the most recent official figures showing that 2,917 deaths from illicit drugs were recorded in England and Wales in 2018, an annual rise of 17% . Drug-safety testing originated in California in the 1960s and spread across Europe in the late 1980s. Both the Swiss and New Zealand governments are funding national evaluations, with a Europe-wide evaluation also planned. ‘One of the distinct values of drug- safety testing is that we ask people what they think they have bought then test it and find out what they have actually bought,’ Measham said. ‘In this way we are gradually building a much better understanding of how illegal drug markets operate in the UK, including the extent of misselling and adulteration in markets. For example, we now know that festival dealers are twice as likely to missell substances as neighbourhood dealers, through our festival testing. Community-based testing like these pilots allows us to get a better understanding of that misselling within different city centre drug-markets too. This can then alert drug-users and emergency services in the short term and also inform healthcare services in the long term.’ Three in 10 drug users intend to take smaller doses in future after receiving the results of the drug testing and speaking to a healthcare professional; a third will be more careful about polydrug use; and one in 10 will dispose of further substances in their possession. Steve Rolles, of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, said: ‘As drug- related deaths reach new records, it’s clear that putting our heads in the sand and wishing the problem would go away isn’t good enough. We know that drug-safety testing works. It’s time the government showed some long-absent leadership and got fully behind it.’ • This article was amended on 21 February 2020 to clarify that the 17% figure for illicit drug deaths was an annual increase. J. Doward, The Guardian (16/2/20) United States A CALL TO ACTION : E STABLISH DC’ S FIRST SAFE CONSUMPTION SPACE n 2018, Washington, D.C. reported 213 opioid-related overdose deaths, or 30.3 per 100,000 people. Overdose fatalities ended the lives of over 70,000 Americans nationally, at a rate that is accurately described as a crisis – 14.6 per 100,000 people – but that is less than half of the District’s. Through testing of drug samples by Ward, the harm-reduction non-profit HIPS estimates that over 90% of the street I