Drug Checking
Ready to #TestIt?
Over 1,100 novel substances have been reported to the United Nations as of December 2021. This doesn’t include the >20,000 FDA-approved pharmaceuticals in the U.S., or the >4,900 supplement ingredients, that are also circulating on the illicit market. Countless combinations of illicit, pharmaceutical, supplementary, and inert substances are being sold in every state in America, and the numbers climb every day.
Drug checking, sometimes known as pill testing or adulterant screening, is a harm reduction service that helps people make more informed decisions about their drug use.
Drug checking technology ranges from simple at-home tests that can give you basic frontline information about your drugs (like the kits and test strips we sell) to entire labs that are dedicated to running advanced analysis on samples. These services assist medical professionals and public health agencies in identifying trends in illicit drug markets.
DanceSafe is the oldest and only nonprofit drug checking kit manufacturer in the United States.
In Person
- DanceSafe is sometimes able to offer free on-site drug checking at events, with consent from event producers. No DanceSafe volunteers, event patrons, or event producers have ever been arrested or detained for providing or using drug checking services at events.
- Some organizations in the United States provide underground in-person drug checking services in facilities. These services may utilize at-home test kits and strips (like the ones we sell), or more advanced technology like FTIR (like the machines we bring to events when we’re able). To our knowledge, there are no in-person facilities in America where you can obtain proper confirmatory testing with lab equipment like GC/MS, although there are mail-in services like DrugsData.
- In countries like Canada, there are buildings where anyone can walk in and legally get their drugs tested by lab equipment.
At Home
- The most common drug checking method is purchasing materials to use at home, like reagent kits and test strips.
- These tools can’t tell you the purity or potency of your substance. Test strips can tell you whether a specific drug is present at all, while reagents cast a broader net and can indicate when something about your sample is not reacting as expected.
- We sometimes phrase this as looking for red flags, not green lights.
- It’s important to read our instructions fully before using at-home drug checking materials. It may be drug science, but it’s still science! (Physical copies of instructions are included with every purchase and are also available digitally on the product pages in our shop.)
By a Lab
- DanceSafe started the first-ever lab testing service, EcstasyData, in 1999. EcstasyData is now called DrugsData and is run by the Erowid Project. Anyone can mail in a sample of their substance (for a fee) to get a full lab report on it.
- There are no other publicly accessible drug checking labs in the United States, although you can send a sample overseas to Energy Control in Spain.
- Lab testing is by far the most accurate method of determining what’s in your drugs, and is the only way of actually confirming what they contain, but U.S. restrictions prevent DrugsData from telling you 1) the specific quantities of substances in your sample and 2) any inactive ingredients (like baking soda) it contains.
Drug Checking FAQ
There are multiple technologies available to check drugs, but only a few of them don’t require advanced equipment. The two most common and effective at-home drug checking tools are reagents and test strips (immunoassay strips).
Reagents and test strips have different purposes, strengths, and weaknesses. Neither can tell you exactly what is in your drugs.
Test strips are useful for telling you whether a specific type of drug is present in your sample at all.
- Fentanyl, amphetamine, and benzodiazepine test strips are three of the most popular kinds used in drug checking. Each type of strip is specialized to detect a particular set of drugs, and will produce a positive result if any of those drugs are present in a sample.
- Test strips are used by diluting a measured amount of your drugs in a measured amount of water. The ratio of drugs to water matters, so it’s critical to read and follow any instructions carefully. Strip testing does not destroy your drugs.
Reagents are useful for telling you whether there are red flags with your sample (something didn’t test “as expected”).
- They cannot confirm whether specific drugs are present in your sample, but they can give you clues as to whether or not your sample is suspicious.
- Reagents are used by dropping acidic chemicals onto small samples of your drug and observing the color changes. Reagent testing does destroy your drugs, but only requires a few milligrams per test.
Beware of any company that over-promises on what its drug checking materials can deliver. No at-home drug checking materials are sensitive enough to test for purity OR confirm specific information about your drugs, including:
- telling you exactly what drug(s) you have (only a lab can confirm this);
- confirming/identifying the presence of multiple different drugs in your sample;
- inactive cuts (substances that won’t get you high, like dietary supplements);
- potency (strength).
Reagent testing, also known as “colorimetric” testing, involves dropping chemicals onto small samples of your drug and observing the color changes that take place.
Each “reagent” is a specific liquid chemical that reacts with a certain set of drugs. DanceSafe makes and sells nine different reagents, each of which has a unique name and a unique set of color reactions with various drugs.
Example: Marquis reagent (usually just called “Marquis”) turns black in the presence of MDMA, while Simon’s reagent turns blue.
You’ll almost always need to use more than one reagent at a time. Many reagents turn the same color with multiple drugs – Marquis, for example, turns black with MDMA and MDA. When using reagents, you should be asking yourself:
“Is this sample reacting as expected for [drug]? Are the color changes matching the DanceSafe chart?”
If the answer is no, you’ve just come across a red flag. This means that you’ve hit an unexpected snag in the test, and something isn’t right. The two biggest mistakes to be made in drug checking are:
- attempting to figure out what exactly isn’t right (you can guess, but you cannot know for sure without lab analysis);
- assuming that a test without any red flags means that the test result is “good” or the drugs are “pure.”
A (short) example:
- You’ve used Marquis reagent on a sample of suspected MDMA. As expected, Marquis turned black. Marquis can turn black with multiple things, however, and you still need more data points.
- To continue the test, you’d use Simon’s reagent on a new sample. Simon’s turns blue in the presence of MDMA, but either doesn’t react or turns a muddy grey with MDA. This second test can help you determine if there are any red flags with your sample.
- If Simon’s doesn’t turn blue, as it’s expected to for MDMA, you know that something isn’t right. You can’t know what, exactly, without sending your sample to a lab.
- If it does turn blue, all you know is that the sample is still reacting as expected and hasn’t given you any red flags yet.
My test didn’t have any red flags. Why doesn’t that mean that my drugs are good?
An easy example of this is the great MDMA shortage of 2009-2017. An enormous supply of MDMA and its synthesis materials (ingredients) was destroyed in 2008, leading to a global reduction in MDMA availability.
Some enterprising suppliers figured out that two easily-accessible substances, called PMMA and PMA, did not react in the presence of the Marquis reagent. MDMA’s black reaction on Marquis overshadowed the non-reactions of PMMA and PMA, making reagent tests appear to react as expected – no red flags.
Much of the MDMA supply in the early 2010s included pressed pills containing a little bit of MDMA alongside one or more other ingredients, some of which caused spades of fatal hyperthermia (overheating) like PMMA and PMA.
Additionally, many things can influence the final color reaction of reagents: precursors, adulterants, bulking agents, organic or inorganic impurities, even the color of the surface you’re testing on. Test with humility, and assume that you’re missing information.
Even the most seasoned drug checking experts should only use reagents to tell if something is obviously wrong with their sample – NEVER to confirm the contents or quality of the drug. Remember: there are at least 25,000 substances in circulation as of 2023.
No reagent can test for fentanyl. Do not trust any liquid chemical that’s marketed to be able to do so.
You can read all about this in our instructional pamphlet, and you can buy reagents here.
Strip testing, also known as “immunoassay” testing, involves 1) diluting your drugs in a certain amount of water and 2) dipping a test strip into the mixture to get a positive or negative result for the presence of a particular kind of drug. This test is very useful for determining if one specific type drug (like fentanyl and its analogs) is in your sample at all.
Keep in mind: Each type of strip will be able to detect the presence of a certain set of drugs. Amphetamine test strips, for example, may produce a positive if they detect amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA, 4-fluoroamphetamine, and so on. Only a lab can tell you exactly what’s in your sample, but test strips are very helpful for determining whether:
- Something you want might be present in your sample at all.
- Example: You bought some Xanax bars on the internet.
- A positive benzo strip test can’t give you any information about what specific benzo might be present, but it’s not an immediate red flag that your pill appears to contain no benzos whatsoever.
- A negative benzo strip test might indicate that your pill contains something else entirely.
- Note: Counterfeit benzo pills may contain dangerously high doses of very potent novel substances.
- Example: You bought some Xanax bars on the internet.
- Something you don’t want appears to be present in your sample.
- Example: You bought some cocaine and want to use an amphetamine strip to see if it contains amphetamine of any sort, which isn’t what you’re looking for.
- Example: You bought some cocaine and want to use a fentanyl strip to see if it’s been contaminated with a fentanyl-type drug.
Test strips are actually urine strips that have been repurposed for use in drug checking. This is an important concept to understand: you can read more about it here.
Since immunoassay strips are very sensitive, it is extremely important to use the correct ratio of water to substance to avoid getting a false positive or negative.
You can read more about our fentanyl test strips in our instructional pamphlet, and you can buy test strips here.
Organic material (like plant matter and fungi) is difficult, if not impossible, to test with at-home tools. We rarely advise trying to test organic materials except in extreme outlier situations, where we offer assistance on a case-by-case basis.
As of late 2022 we are only aware of one case of fentanyl contamination in cannabis that has actually been substantiated by a lab, while all other claims are either unverified or have been debunked. If the situation changes we’ll update our advisory accordingly. We are not aware of any cases of fentanyl contamination in mushrooms that we haven’t personally disproven.
Be aware that many cannabis-related products sold in head shops and smoke shops may have poor quality control, and sometimes contain pesticides, heavy metals, or no cannabinoids at all.
Medical emergencies from synthetic cannabinoids (which you may know as “Spice” or “K2”) are frequently misattributed to fentanyl. Buy from licensed dispensaries when possible, and always look for quality control information on the packaging of any weed that’s bought from any non-dispensary source.
Note: Testing magic mushrooms isn’t useful, but you should examine the shrooms to make sure they’re not a different (potentially poisonous) species altogether. Websites like the Shroomery can help with identification.
#TestIt is an awareness program that highlights the importance of drug checking and illuminates illicit drug market trends across the U.S. #TestIt alerts are periodically released about adulterated drugs, serving as an early warning system for novel substances OR a caution about a high-risk regional trend.
You can see recent #TestIt Alerts here. For more in-depth information about novel psychoactive substances detected in the United States, you can sign up for the NPS Discovery newsletter.
Most states have laws defining drug checking tools as drug paraphernalia, making it illegal (to varying degrees) to possess or distribute reagent test kits and fentanyl test strips. However, DanceSafe has shipped hundreds of thousands of drug checking tools to all 50 states over the past 24 years. We aren’t aware of a single case where anyone has been arrested just for purchasing or possessing drug checking tools like reagent kits or fentanyl test strips.
Many states have recently changed their laws to remove drug checking tools from the “drug paraphernalia” definition in an effort to combat the overdose crisis. Recent reforms to drug paraphernalia laws show a positive trend of state governments acknowledging drug checking tools as an important public health intervention. These meaningful policy reforms are in alignment with the CDC recently acknowledging the public health benefits of drug checking.
Again: In the last 24 years of shipping reagents and test strips across the country, we are not aware of any criminal cases where someone has been charged for possession of just a drug checking kit. There have been some cases where people had extra paraphernalia charges tacked on to their case if they were arrested for other drug charges, and happened to also be in possession of drug checking materials.
If you are concerned, you can review the drug checking laws in your state here. More information about shipping and policies is available here.
If you or your organization have any further questions, please contact us directly at hannah@dancesafe.org.
Recent #TestIt Alerts
Context Clues: Fentanyl in Mushrooms?
An emergency text went out at Electric Forest 2022 claiming that fentanyl-laced mushrooms were causing ODs. We break down different ways to read articles like this to determine the validity of their claims, while pointing out red flags that indicate where information might be getting inflated.
URGENT: Recent Batch of Fentanyl Strips Requires Different Dilutions
DanceSafe has recently discovered that the BTNX fentanyl strip batch ending in 196 produces false positives with MDMA and meth unless diluted more.
#TestIt Alert: Round light blue pill sold as oxy contains fentanyl
A round light blue pill with “A” over “215” separated by a break line was sold in Philadelphia, PA as oxycodone A 215; contains fentanyl, analogues, gabapentin.
