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Does anyone test for and publish the content of street drugs?
Q: Are there any web-sites that publish the actual content of local (Central Coast, California) street drugs? Who's doing the testing now? PharmChem? Do It Now? I'm lost; please send me a lead.

A: Unfortunately, there is little in the way of public testing of street drugs. In the mid-70s the DEA issued an order which disallows labs from doing anonymous quantitative testing of scheduled (illegal) substances. Qualitative anonymous testing is still allowed at a few labs--meaning these labs can take anonymous samples and tell you what substances are in them, but they are not allowed to report how much of each substance is present. Since most people are unwilling to carry an illegal substance in to a lab and submit it with a photocopy of their drivers license, there isn't a lot happening in the way of comprehensive street drug testing.



EcstasyData.org is a project Erowid manages which publishes qualitiative results of street Ecstasy contents. This is the only U.S. program we're aware of that publically publishes lab testing results of any sort.



Pharmchem, who used to have one of the most prolific anonymous street testing programs in the 1970s, has apparently undergone a change in ownership/management. They seem to do mostly urine testing these days.



The DEA has a lot of data on this topic but they don't publish or allow access to any of their data, even denying freedom of information requests.



Erowid believes that publishing accurate information about what is being sold on the streets can be done without jeopardizing legitimate law enforcement purposes. We hope the DEA will reconsider their policies in the face of ongoing health risks and dangers caused by this lack of data.



peace,

fire

Asked By : alan brovar, md
Answered By : fire
Published Date : 3 / 20 / 2003
Last Edited Date : 3 / 20 / 2003
Question ID : 3043

Categories: [ Chemical ID ] [ Drug Testing ]



Ask Erowid v1.7 - Jul, 2005

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