Why We Launched the First Ever VICE MDMA Census

In January this year, three people died on Chapel Street in Melbourne from a bad batch of what they thought was MDMA. A few weeks later VICE got our hands on a leaked police memo, which revealed Victoria Police had tested the drugs in question and discovered why they'd made so many people sick. But the police decided to not make the results public, even though the drugs had two pretty worrying adulterants in them. These were 4-Fluoroamphetamine (4-FA), which is an amphetamine-like stimulant and 25C-NBOMe, a highly potent hallucinogen, often described as synthetic LSD, which induces intense effects at even low doses.

It might go without saying, but typically MDMA should not contain either of these things. Pill testing experts based in Europe told VICE they had absolutely no idea why anyone would mix NBOMe into MDMA, although this wasn't the first time it's happened. In October 2016 NBOMe killed Victorian footballer Riki Stephens and hospitalised at least 16 others on the Gold Coast. At the time, the country's media freaked out that these people had taken flakka, "the zombie drug" that's made headlines in the US. You've probably seen the videos: people climbing trees, screaming hysterically into the camera, being frightened by brooms and jumping into the tray of a passing ute. But professional testing by police showed it was actually NBOMe.

Frustrated by the fact young Australians are completely reliant on the whims of police for any reliable information about their drugs, VICE decided to launch our first ever national MDMA Census. VICE writers headed out in cities across Australia—to festivals, clubs, and house parties—armed with the only thing the general public can get: commercially available pill testing kits. To be exact, we used EZ Test's "ecstasy kit."

This census wasn't about testing every MD cap in Australia. What we wanted to do was start some honest conversations about taking drugs, harm minimisation, and pill testing. We wanted to start some conversations that aren't tied to ideas that don't wash with reality: like telling people "just don't do drugs" ever worked to keep anyone safe. Or that taking drugs is a fringe activity—MDMA in particular is a hugely popular drug around Australia, and we're one of the biggest consumers of it in the world.

— Melbourne — Geelong — Sydney — Wollongong — Brisbane — Perth — Hobart — Adelaide

But governments on both a state and federal levels are stonewalling. Former NSW Premier Mike Baird became well known for his anti-testing stance, saying that his government would not use "taxpayer funded dollars" towards "supporting illegal drug dealers" despite evidence that testing could stop young people dying. Tasmania's Police Minister Rene Hidding has similarly said he would never allow professional pill testing at summer festivals. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has also spoken out against pill testing, saying it "normalises" drug use.

Meanwhile, pill testing advocates like drug expert and medical practitioner Dr David Caldicott argue these facilities in fact encourage caution among drug users. Speaking to VICE last year, he compared them to having safe sex. "They're kind of like the condoms of the harm reduction world. We're trying to keep people safe," he explained. Every piece of research we've seen suggests the legislation and implementation of public pill testing facilities could save lives.

— More than a third of the samples indicated the presence of DXM, a cough suppressant that can have dissociative effects at high doses
— Less than a third of the samples we tested resulted in a purple "MDMA" result
— Methylone and 2-CB also showed up

It's probably worth saying a little about how these testing kits work—particularly what they can and can't tell you. We'll soon be releasing some how-tos about getting the most information out of the testing kits available, but here are some basics for now: A pill testing kit cannot tell you whether your drugs are "pure" or "safe." That's probably the biggest misconception that came up during the Census. Also synthetics can also be tough to pick up—for example, experts told VICE that commercially available kits wouldn't have identified the NBOMe in the bad batch that hit Chapel Street. Instead to get real detail, you need professional pill testing equipment.

Unfortunately, this summer, doctors and scientists around Australia have been threatened with arrest if they try to make professional testing available to the public. Elsewhere in EU countries like The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria, and Portugal, professional testing at parties and festivals has been legalised in the name of harm minimisation.

What commercial pill testing kits can help you do is pick up common adulterants. Most MDMA kits are Marquis reagent tests—a mix of of formaldehyde and sulfuric acid, which reacts with certain chemicals inside your drugs to produce a colour change. When you test, you shouldn't just be looking for a "positive" reaction, but also for anything else that could indicate something is wrong. For example, if you see patches of purple and yellow in your test, that could indicate the presence of methylone, a psychoactive that has a similar chemical structure to MDMA.

— Two-thirds of you are buying drugs from your friends, only a third are getting them from a dealer
— No one we spoke to reported buying their drugs on the dark web
— 91 percent of you wanted access to legal, professional pill testing service

"The biggest risk… is actually a false negative where no adulterant is detected but one is present," UK-based chemist Guy Jones told VICE. "Testing with multiple reagents is a very useful tool as it vastly increases the chance that you will have one reagent which reacts strongly with any given adulterant. Around 90 percent of adulterants react strongly with at least one of three tests, and approximately 95 percent react strongly with one of five tests. These remaining five percent are very uncommon."

Obviously, these commercial kits are not as effective as professional pill testing services. But they, and this census, are conversation starters. We want to keep this conversation going, and get more information out there about the MDMA floating around in the Australian market. If you test your drugs with a pill testing kit, take a photo of your results, and send it to us securely over Wickr. Just search for: vicemdmacensus See the first round of results for your city over at the VICE MDMA Census.