Drug Checking - From guerrilla to government agent: the full spectrum of drug checking services

Guest Editors: Nicolas Van der Linden, Raoul Pieter Joost Koning, Daan van der Gouwe, Mireia Ventura, Fiona Measham

Introduction - Guest editorial

The aim of the special issue is twofold. On the one hand, it capitalises on the momentum generated by the growing scientific and political interest in drug checking to present some of the latest insights and models of drug checking to a diverse audience of academics, policymakers and professionals. On the other hand, it explores some of the limitations of the scientific literature to date (for recent reviews, see Giulini et al., 2022; Maghsoudi et al., 2021; Palamar et al., 2021), which has tended to focus on micro-level variables (e.g. evaluations of technologies or individual behavioural change; e.g. Harper et al., 2017), to the neglect of variables located at the meso-level (including impact at community or event level; but see, e.g. Wallace et al., 2021), or macro-level analyses (such as the effects of drug checking on international drug markets or public health indicators such as national mortality and morbidity) [1]. Additionally, to date, the vast majority of studies on drug checking have been carried out in the Western European context (Maghsoudi et al., 2021) and therefore additional efforts were made by the guest editorial team to directly support submissions to this special issue from other parts of the world such as Latin America, Eastern Europe and Oceania.

Table of contents

• Guest editorial
  Raoul Pieter Joost Koning, Nicolas Van der Linden, Daan van der Gouwe, Mireia Ventura, Fiona Measham
• What is drug checking, anyway?
  Monica J. Barratt, Fiona Measham
• Who uses drug checking services? Assessing uptake and outcomes at English festivals in 2018
  Fiona Measham, Henry Simmons
• Drug checking in New Zealand: the 2020 and 2021 drug and substance checking legislation acts
  Fiona Hutton
• Size matters: comparing the MDMA content and weight of ecstasy tablets submitted to European drug checking services in 2012–2021
  Ruben Quirinus Vrolijk, Fiona Measham, Adrià Quesada, Anton Luf, Dominique Schori, Sarah Radley, Dean Acreman, Josie Smith, Marko Verdenik, Daniel Martins, Mar Cunha, Carlos J. Paulos, Ilaria Fineschi Piccinin, Enrico Gerace, Alexandra Karden, Raoul Pieter Joost Koning, Laura Alexandra Smit-Rigter, Mireia Ventura
• A distributed model to expand the reach of drug checking
  Bruce Wallace, Lea Gozdzialski, Abdelhakim Qbaich, Azam Shafiul, Piotr Burek, Abby Hutchison, Taylor Teal, Rebecca Louw, Collin Kielty, Derek Robinson, Belaid Moa, Margaret-Anne Storey, Chris Gill, Dennis Hore
• Drug use patterns, harm reduction strategies and use of drug checking services in boom festival patrons
  Helena Valente, Daniel Martins, Marta Pinto, José Luis Fernandes, Monica J. Barratt
• Psychoactive substance use and drug checking practices among participants at electronic dance music events in Ukraine
  Vyacheslav Kushakov, Vira Dvoriak, Olga Morozova, Lyu Azbel, Galyna Sergienko
• Community-led guerrilla drug checking in response to deaths from adulterated MDMA in Victoria, Australia
  Monica J. Barratt, Stephen J. Bright, Ash R. Blackwell
• Échele Cabeza as a harm reduction project and activist movement in Colombia
  Mauro Díaz Moreno, Nathalia Alarcón Ayala, Yarelix Estrada, Vannesa Morris, Julián Quintero
• Substance residue analysis as an alternative to drug checking? Traces from drug paraphernalia as a source for laboratory analysis
  Teemu Kaskela, Ronja Järvelin, Janne Nahkuri, Teemu Gunnar, Aino Kankaanpää, Anna Pelander, Miina Kajos
• Challenges, policy and politics in drug checking: reflections of the TEDItorial team
  Nicolas Van der Linden, Raoul Pieter Joost Koning, Daan van der Gouwe, Mireia Ventura, Fiona Measham