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Yesterday, we looked under the hood of pill testing: how scientists can tell if a pill really is MDMA.

But as Victoria looks set to approve a trial that would see mobile pill-testing sites up and running by this summer’s festival season, I think the more important story is not the chemistry but the sociology.

What does pill testing do to the way we think about risk?Credit: Richard Giliberto

Does pill testing make drug users more or less likely to take drugs?

Does it make people who otherwise wouldn’t use drugs more or less likely to take them?

And how does it change the risk these two groups face overall?

Using drugs comes with a risk of harm.

Evaluating the risk of party drugs is tricky, because MDMA is at the bottom end of the harm spectrum (one famous paper noted the risk of personal harm from taking MDMA is probably lower than horseriding). Fentanyl and opioids, which can contaminate MDMA, are near the top of that spectrum.

“Every drug carries risk,” says RMIT’s Dr Monica Barratt, who studies drug policy. There are varying levels of risk, but “even some of those substances way down the bottom of the list … can still cause people to........

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