PHF Science to support drug checking services over the summer season

By Olivia Johnson, PHF Science Drug Chemistry Team

As the 2025-26 summer season fast approaches in Aotearoa New Zealand, the PHF Science Drug Chemistry team is preparing to support in-field drug checking services. Drug and substance checking is free and confidential in Aotearoa, allowing members of the public to have a drug sample analysed to indicate its likely composition. The service aims to reduce drug-related harm by helping people to make informed decisions about drug use. Drug checking does not promote drug use or claim that it is safe. As the first country to permanently legalise drug checking services in 2021, other jurisdictions are now looking to New Zealand to learn from our expertise.

PHF Science has a key role in the provision of drug checking in Aotearoa, with a focus on applying world-leading science to reduce drug-related harm in our communities. We are one of five licenced Drug Checking providers and will receive and analyse a number of samples over the summer period, as we do throughout the year. The Drug Chemistry team carries out laboratory analysis on samples from in-field drug checking providers where the drug cannot be identified or  which have been  associated with harm, which equates to approximately two per cent of all samples analysed by the service.

PHF Science works collaboratively with the drug checking providers and with High Alert, New Zealand’s early warning system for dangerous drugs, to alert the public to potentially harmful drug trends when they occur. This utilises our knowledge and experience of international trends to identify new drugs which is then shared with the community by High Alert, NZ Drug Foundation (NZDF), KnowYourStuffNZ (KYSNZ) and Drug Injecting Services Canterbury (DISC). To ensure a safe summer festival season, PHF Science operate an on-call summer service to urgently carry out laboratory analysis on any samples of concern.

Additionally, PHF Science is responsible for maintaining the equipment used by the drug checking providers. In-field drug checking utilises rapid testing methods, such as reagent colour tests, immunoassay test strips and portable Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy which collects a chemical fingerprint of the sample and compares it to an extensive chemical library. These techniques are quick-to-use, portable for in-field analysis, and provide accurate results.

Prior to the Christmas break, we prepare the instruments for a busy festival summer season by carrying out routine maintenance, refreshing components and updating the chemical libraries. These updates increase the capability to detect recent novel psychoactive substances (NPS), or new drugs. There will be 17 spectrometers being used across the motu this summer, up from 14 last year, which has increased the overall capacity of the service.

Increasing capabilities to detect new drugs is becoming increasingly important. New Zealand has a unique drug landscape. Historically our drug trends lag behind other larger countries, largely due to our geographical isolation, however, in recent years we have been detecting  a growing number of new compounds. Of particular interest are two international first detections. One for a novel synthetic cathinone, N-cyclohexyl pentylone, from 2024 and then more recently for a potent opioid, butodesnitazene in June this year. The latter met the threshold for a nationwide High Alert notification, bringing this to the public’s attention after this substance had been sold as heroin. It is likely that butodesnitazene has a potency more similar to or greater than fentanyl, so had the potential to cause serious harm.

PHF Science’s role in drug and substance checking is one of the key ways in which the organisation is supporting drug harm reduction initiatives, using our science to make communities safer. The Drug Chemistry team at PHF Science looks forward to working with High Alert and drug checking providers over the summer season.