An Australian-first static pill testing site in Canberra's city centre will open later this week with a six-month pilot program to operate at the Moore Street site.
The long-awaited service will provide a chemical analysis of drugs and pills and people will also be able to have consultations with nurses about general health, sexual health and mental health advice.
The facility will only open on Thursdays from 10am to 1pm and Fridays from 6pm to 9pm.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the pilot was part of the ACT government's harm minimisation approach to drug use.
"This Australian-first program will help people who use drugs to better understand or avoid unknown and potentially dangerous substances in illicit drugs," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
"In addition to drug checking, the service will provide harm reduction information, counselling and advice to encourage choices that reduce drug use and associated harms.
"We know the safest option is not to take drugs and this will always be our advice to the community. However, we recognise that some people will choose to use drugs and there is a need for initiatives that reduce the harms associated with drug use."
The service will be run by Directions Health Services with help from Pill Testing Australia and the Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy.
Following the trial there will be an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the service by Australian National University Associate Professor Anna Olsen.
"Understanding the impact of these types of services is especially important given the recent rise in deaths of young people at music festivals and the detection of high potency synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, in seized heroin and cocaine," associate professor Olsen said.
"Our previous work suggests that drug checking services represent a unique setting to engage people who use drugs - in particular, those who may not usually access health-related information about their drug use.
"We will ask participants what they thought of the service, what kind of information was useful to them and whether their behaviours were different after the service, and if so, in what ways they were different."
There was $260,000 allocated to the six-month trial of the static site in last year's territory budget, but the cost will be fully offset by the health funding envelope.
The fixed-site trial was originally intended to go ahead in the summer of 2020 and 2021 but it proved too difficult to deliver the pilot in a short period.
The government had also planned to open the centre earlier this year but it was delayed again.
The ACT government agreed to explore the idea of a fixed-site pill testing trial in the Legislative Assembly in 2020, following a push from the ACT Greens.
Pill testing trials have already taken place in the territory at the Groovin The Moo music festivals in 2018 and 2019.
Pill testing was also expected at this year's Groovin' The Moo festival but it was cancelled just days before the event as there were troubles obtaining insurance.
The pill testing site will be located at 1 Moore Street on the ground floor of the City Community Health Centre.
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