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Rosa Woods/Stuff Drug testing agency Know Your Stuff NZ found an “alarming” amount the synthetic cathinone eutylone during testing last summer. The stimulant takes longer to kick in, meaning a user can take more before they’re aware of the effects, and end up overdosing. It has contributed to a number of hospitalisations around the country, with users reporting a range of symptoms including shaking, vomiting, paranoia, panic attacks, hallucinations, seizures and anxiety. With little international research available on the drug, Allison said almost everything they know about it had b...

Harm minimisation experts in New Zealand have criticised Australia's response to drug deaths at music festivals. The comments come after the NZ health minister last week confirmed the government would permanently legalise pill-testing, a harm reduction strategy that's seen little government support in Australia. Pill-testing organisation Know Your Stuff NZ (KYSNZ) managing director Wendy Allison said they looked across the ditch to see how authorities here were trying to keep young people safe at festivals and knew what they definitely wouldn't do. "We looked at Australia before we started...

Know Your Stuff is a community group trying to reduce drug harm. Photo: Supplied MPs rushed through interim legislation under urgency late last year to ensure volunteer checkers at summer festivals would not be prosecuted. The bill is due to expire in December, but Health Minister Andrew Little said fresh legislation would be passed this year, permanently allowing tests on illegal drugs at festivals. But Wendy Allison, managing director of Know Your Stuff - a community group trying to reduce drug harm - said the approval of checks at music festivals needed to be the start of more extensive ...

Before the new law it existed in a legal gray area, with festival hosts technically liable for prosecution if they knowingly provide a venue for illicit drug use. No one had ever been prosecuted for this, but it has kept pill testing from becoming widespread because of the legal risk. Test results over the summer found a large amount of cathinones (or “bath salts”) that had been sold as MDMA. Know Your Stuff A supplied photo of cathinone eutylone found by drug testing service Know Your Stuff in place of MDMA. Health Minister Andrew Little said a bill was being prepared to make the law-...

Electric Avenue is Christchurch’s biggest outdoor music festival and this year’s event drew record crowds of 25,000. The St John spokeswoman said she could not say whether the injuries were drug related or how they happened as that would breach the organisation’s privacy policy. JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/Stuff Drugs taken from attendees at this year’s Electric Avenue festival included bath salts, synthetic cannabis, meth, MDMA and LSD. Drug testing agency Know Your Stuff found 40 per cent of MDMA samples tested in Christchurch last week had been substituted with a synthetic cathinone know...