When drugs make the rounds at parties, hardly anyone knows what’s really in them. Cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy are often contaminated or “mis-declared”. In Berlin you can have your substance tested – quite legally.
In the worst case, this mix-up could be fatal: Ketamine instead of MDMA – i.e. an anesthetic instead of a stimulant. The “false declaration” was discovered by the chemists of the Berlin forensic medicine. “The consumer must be warned about this,” says Martin Jasyk. The chemist works at the State Institute for Forensic and Social Medicine in Berlin.
Since the beginning of June, they have been testing drugs here that users have given away. Before that, there was a trial run lasting several weeks. The interim conclusion after 70 samples: 25 to 30 percent of the drugs were conspicuous, i.e. incorrectly declared or with too high an active ingredient content. “That was in an area where it becomes really dangerous, even if the tablets are halved before consumption,” says Jasyk.
Warnings on the site
The warnings are published on the project’s website. “In our opinion, drug checking is successful if we can avoid damage to health and if we, as drug help, reach users who would otherwise not be reached by drug help or who would be reached much too late,” says the pharmaceutical director of the project, describing the drug’s goals -Checkings. Because without contact to the advice center it doesn’t work.
For the addiction counselors, the offer also opens the door to the scene, which they cannot reach with the classic offers. “There’s an inhibition threshold,” says Ulrike Scherling, head of addiction counseling Misfit. These are people who would otherwise not have come to the counseling center. The conversation is there at the delivery – another one after the analysis of the purity and the ingredients.
Three days until the test result
The demand is particularly high in the party and celebration scene. “They have a great interest in consuming healthily and less harmfully,” says Scherling. Consuming healthily – that may sound strange at first. But everyone involved in the project reports similar things. “There is a need to know what health risk it poses and how you can reduce it,” says project coordinator Tibor Harrach.
But until the result is available, it takes an average of three days, a maximum of seven. This offer does not reach those who go partying at the weekend and then buy spontaneously. This would require mobile tests – where the drugs are consumed, at festivals or in clubs.
Berlin CDU found it difficult
But at least it’s a start. Berlin has been arguing about drug checking since the 1990s. It took years before the parties were able to come to an agreement and the framework conditions were in place. The Berlin CDU struggled for a long time to take this step. Advantages are recognizable, says CDU interior expert Burkhard Dregger. But: “The concern was that we were creating a distinction between supposedly clean drugs and dirty drugs”. Further steps are conceivable, but before that one has to evaluate this project.
Other countries like Austria or Switzerland are further along. Drug checking has been there for 20 years. But something is also happening nationwide. The traffic light in the coalition agreement says: “We enable and expand models for drug checking and measures to minimize damage.” The topic is to be debated in the Bundestag before the summer break and model tests are to be made possible in the federal states.
Drug checking as part of prevention
According to the Federal Drugs Commissioner Burkhard Blienert, the time of prohibition-driven drug policy is over. Drug checking should become an integral part of drug prevention. “It has nothing to do with normalizing or decriminalizing drug use,” says the SPD politician.
The number of drug-related deaths has increased significantly over the past ten years. In 2012, 944 people died, in 2022 it was more than twice as many. Most die as a result of the addiction, but the number of deaths in connection with so-called party drugs has recently increased significantly. Drug checking aims to counteract this trend.