Legally possible soon
Two other federal states are planning drug checking
6/28/2023 6:52 am
How much MDMA does the ecstasy pill contain? What was the cocaine cut with? Drug users don’t usually find this out from their dealers. Two federal states want to follow the example of Berlin and Thuringia and start drug testing projects.
According to a report, several federal states want to follow the example of Berlin and Thuringia and introduce free drug analyses. After pilot projects in the federal capital and Thuringia, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg also want to introduce offers where consumers can have the ingredients in the drugs they buy checked for health hazards (“drug checking”). This is reported by the editorial network Germany (RND), citing a survey of all federal states.
The background is a new law that is intended to make such offers nationwide possible. The federal states should be able to allow pilot projects “if the analysis is associated with a risk assessment and health education”. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said this would reduce the number of drug-related deaths. The law was passed by the Bundestag last week and will finally go to the Bundesrat. A spokeswoman for the green-black state government of Baden-Württemberg told the RND that the exact start time for corresponding models is currently still open.
Five states are against it
A spokesman for the Hessian Minister of Social Affairs and Integration, Kai Klose, from the Greens said that the change at federal level largely adopts the proposals of the Hessian Bundesrat initiative of 2020. According to the report, the state governments of Brandenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony decided. The other seven federal states – Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland – informed the RND that they did not yet have a final opinion or more concrete plans on the subject.
Drug checking services have existed in Switzerland and Austria for years. Consumers can have substances tested anonymously at parties or festivals or at stationary test centers. In addition to the active ingredient content, any impurities are also determined. Some of the test results are published online. The ecstasy pill, after which a 13-year-old died in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, can also be found in various variants on warning lists. In Berlin, the blue tablet with the “Blue Punisher” logo has been analyzed seven times since April, with different concentrations of MDMA hydrochloride. In two cases, substances were found in the tablets that could not be identified in the laboratory. Drug checkers urgently advised against consuming these tablets.