KEY POINTS
- The recreational drugs have similar effects to MDMA and ketamine, scientists say.
- They say they "don't know a lot about them".
- The discoveries come amid a wider debate in Australia about pill testing in other states.
Scientists have sniffed out three new recreational drugs at Australia's only fixed pill testing site.
The party drugs have similar effects to MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and ketamine, which is used as a medical anaesthetic.
They were discovered by a team of scientists at the Australian National University at the .
Professor Malcolm McLeod, who made the discoveries, says it's not yet known how dangerous the new drugs are.
"We don't know how it will affect people or what the health consequences are," Professor McLeod said.
"While derivatives of these stimulants first emerged in New Zealand in the early 2000s, we actually don't know a lot about them," he said of the ketamine-like substance..
One of the samples, which the would-be user thought was a stimulant with similar effects to amphetamines, also included methamphetamine and MDMA.
The discoveries come amid a wider debate in Australia about pill testing in other states after several people overdosed at summer music festivals.
Advocates have acknowledged that while testing is not a panacea, it greatly increases harm minimisation with people discarding potentially lethal substances.
More pill testing sites would mean more lives saved, ACT Population Health Minister Emma Davidson said.
"People take drugs and it is a health issue. Australians cannot make safer choices unless they have access to the right support and services such as pill testing," she told AAP.
"A national network will mean greater access for people to pill test and help minimise harm to the individual and their community."
The NSW government was focused on making music festivals as safe as possible, state Health Minister Ryan Park said.
But he wouldn't commit to pill testing, saying the two jurisdictions were different and instead pointed to increasing first aid, ensuring access to water and improving messaging at festivals.
"We've got a much bigger population, much more festivals and we've got to make sure that we are making them as safe as possible," he told Sky News.
"We've got to make sure that we keep jurisdiction by jurisdiction focus here."
Pill testing would be discussed at a forum like a drug summit, he said.
The Canberra testing site also discovered a new ketamine-like drug in October 2022, which had not been seen in Australia before.
It has analysed more than 1,700 samples since opening in July 2022.
One in ten samples was thrown out after the person learnt what was in the drug during the first six months of the testing facility opening.
Almost one in five now discard their drugs at the clinic, Ms Davidson said.
Scientists triggered a health alert in late 2022 after discovering a potentially lethal opioid in pills that were falsely sold as oxycodone.
