Drug checking is a free, legal and confidential service that helps you find out what’s really in your drugs.

To find upcoming drug checking clinics near you, see our drug checking calendar.
To find your drug checking results online, head to our results page.

Drug checking FAQ

First, you’ll check in and hand over a small sample of your drug – about 10mg, roughly the size of a match head. No drug checking services are allowed to know or use your real name, so some will give you a code name.  

Then, drug checking staff or volunteers will check your drugs. They use a scientific machine called a spectrometer, along with reagent tests (chemicals that change colour when they react with certain drugs) and test strips that show if fentanyl, nitazene or benzodiazepines are in the drug.   

You’ll then get your results, and drug checkers will have a chat with you about ways to stay safer – especially if your substance wasn’t what you thought it was. 

When you’re buying drugs from the black market, there’s no guarantee they are what you think they are. 

They could be mixed with another drug or could be a different drug entirely. Or they could be mixed with a filler that’s dangerous or unpleasant to take. 

If you don’t know what you’re taking, you could end up taking too much or having a bad time. Worst case, you could get sick or die.

We only need about 10mg of your drug to test, about the size of a match head. After the test, you may be able to get most of it back, depending on the type of tests that were needed. 

There are several organisations that provide drug checking in Aotearoa, including DISC Trust, Know Your Stuff NZ and the NZ Drug Foundation (that’s us). All of them provide drug checking for free in communities and at events.  

Everyone who does drug checking is trained to have friendly, non-judgemental conversations about drug use. It’s a two-way exchange – we want to hear your knowledge and tips too. 

Yes! New Zealand was the first country to make drug checking legal. That means that by law:   

  • Police can’t use your presence at a drug checking clinic as evidence in court, or as a reason to search you   

  • It’s legal for you to hand us your drugs 

  • It’s legal for us to handle your drugs for the purpose of testing 

  • Venues used for drug checking won’t get in trouble for having people bring drugs on site for checking. 

 

The police manual also outlines that: 
 
Police will:

  • Aim to minimise drug and substance harm. 

  • Ensure drug and substance checking services operate unhindered 

  • Avoid any presence at or near where drug and substance checking services are operating so people are not discouraged from having drugs and/or substances checked, unless responding to an incident. 

  • Apply empathy and respect throughout policing festival venues

Drug checking is completely anonymous. The law states that drug checkers can't record any identifying info, not even your name.  

Even if drug checking staff recognise you from elsewhere, they won’t use your name. 

Drug checkers only collect anonymous data, meaning there’s nothing that can be traced back to you. They might ask you if you’ve taken the drug before or if you’ve had a bad time with it.  

This information helps us to understand trends in the drug market, and with sharing info about risky drugs that are going around. Drug checkers have to follow strict rules so that this can’t be linked back to you.

Nope. It’s completely free for everyone. 

Most substances can be checked, including: 

  • Powders or crystals like MDMA, ketamine, cocaine or methamphetamine 

  • Pressed pills 

  • LSD (e.g. as liquid or tabs) 

  • Prescription drugs (like Ritalin) 

  • Supplements and other drugs you use to enhance your performance or image 

  • Mystery baggies found on the ground 

It takes us about 5 - 10 minutes to test a sample. This can take longer depending on if there are other samples waiting to be checked. If you can’t stick around, there may be the option to drop off your sample and get the results online.

There’s no limit. You can bring in as many as you want, but it may take longer to check them all. 

You can’t tell what a drug is by the way it looks, smells, or tastes. Your dealer might not even know what’s in it. 

The best thing you can do is to bring it into drug checking yourself and find out what you have. 

If your drugs turn out to be something different from what you expected, we’ll talk to you about what to expect and how to stay safer.  

We’ll give you the option of disposing of it safely, but you don’t have to do this. We never confiscate your drugs.  

We may ask you if we can send a small sample off for further testing and/or put out a public notification about it. 

Drug checking tests drugs to see what’s in them, so you can make your own informed decisions.

Drug testing usually refers to testing a person (through their urine, blood or hair) to see if they have a drug in their system and is often used in the workplace or through the court system.

Drug checking was made permanently legal in 2021. Since then, we’ve worked hard to establish drug checking around New Zealand. Unfortunately, we are limited by the amount of funding and equipment available. Check out our drug checking calendar to see if there is an upcoming drug checking clinic near you.  

If you live in an area where people want to use drug checking, but it’s not currently available, please get in touch.  

If you can’t make it to a drug checking clinic and you have a drug you’re concerned about (particularly if you’ve taken it and had a bad time), let us know by emailing us and we can talk through possible options.   

Although not as effective as using drug checking, you can check your drugs at home using reagent tests. Read this article for an overview on what reagent tests are, where to get them and how to use them.  

Read our article about checking your MDMA using reagents, or this one about checking your LSD using reagents.  

You can also use test strips to check for the presence of a certain drug. Find out how to use fentanyl and nitazene test strips in this article.