ECSTASY TESTS HEAD FOR SYDNEY

They look like a group of volunteers selling raffle tickets at a
school fete. But these people are creating history.

A Melbourne youth dance festival secretly played host to Australia's
first ecstasy testing station last week. Now the tests are heading to
Sydney.

The initiative allows users to test the purity of pills before using
them. The news is certain to spark further debate over whether
ecstasy is becoming legitimised by stealth.

The test kit manufacturers say the kit is legal, so there can be no
objection to it being distributed, free, as a harm minimisation
strategy.

It could potentially save lives, they say, and assist the fight
against manufacturers who profit from pills which are cut with
substances such as rat poison, heroin and glass.

In May last year, a consortium of Melbourne chemists called Chemical
Generation developed an Australian-made ecstasy testing kit called E
- - A Quick and Simple Test, based on the spot test once used for
forensic analysis. Users place a special solution on a tiny sample of
their tablet. The test indicates the presence of ecstasy (MDMA) by
turning purple to black, or a variety of other colours if it contains
unwanted substances such as heroin.

Chemical Generation spokesman Brett Wilkins said: "Sales have
confirmed everything we suspected about the number of people now
embracing this drug.

"The obvious next stage was to follow the example of the Dutch and
make this harm minimisation available at dance-oriented clubs and
festivals where people, like it or not, are going to take ecstasy."

Mr Wilkins set up Australia's first ecstasy testing station at last
week's Earthcore five-day youth dance festival in Melbourne.

"We decided not to publicise the initiative beforehand because we
wanted to demonstrate the benefits before it got cut down and
criticised," he said. "We ran the station for two days and more than
70 people came up to test the purity of their pills. The number of
inquiries was probably double that. It was a huge success."

Mr Wilkins said Melbourne police and festival security checked out
the stall. "Once we explained to them the aim of harm minimisation,
they were all fully behind it.

"We now plan to do something similar in Sydney soon."

Ecstasy testing kits have been available in Sydney shops for almost
two years after a northern beaches teenager tested the law - and
found he was perfectly entitled to buy and sell them.

The young man said: "I searched the internet and discovered these
kits were available from Holland. It seemed stupid they were not
available in Australia."

He said police, Customs and the Department of Fair Trading were aware
he was trading in the kits and had raised no objections.