SCII.013.022.0065 AUSCRIPT AUSTRALASIA PTY LIMITED ACN 110 028 825 T: 1800 AUSCRIPT (1800 287 274) E: clientservices@auscript.com.au W: www.auscript.com.au TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO PRESENTATION O/N H-1075720 IN THE MATTER OF THE SPECIAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO THE DRUG “ICE” ALESSANDRO PIRONA (PORTUGAL) HARM REDUCTION – VIDEO PRESENTATION MONDAY, 9 SEPTEMBER 2019 TRANSCRIBED BUT NOT RECORDED BY AUSCRIPT AUSTRALASIA PTY LIMITED .PIRONA 9.9.19 P-1
SCII.013.022.0066 MR A. PIRONA: My name is Alessandro Pirona. I’m a Principal Scientific Analyst at the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. I’ve been asked to give this presentation to be used as evidence by the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug Ice and the date today is the, I believe, it’s the 9 th of September 5 2019. So my professional background is I have a PhD in Psychopharmacology from Sussex University in the UK. I have long experience in monitoring public health responses in the drugs field. I’ve joined the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in 2007. And my research interest is the monitoring of new drug trends, responses and interventions in the public health field. And also I have a range 10 of publications in my name in this area, whether in peer reviewed journals or EMCDDA publications. I’ve been asked to provide evidence on drug checking services. So starting with the first question, where I’ve been asked to “Describe the drug checking services 15 currently in place across Europe, including the different modalities?” So we have, in Europe, we have about 14 or more drug checking services. Which are, primarily, in the west – in Western Europe and Southern Europe, that’s where they are located. And, basically, the modalities, there are primarily two to three modalities that exist in Europe. One modality is onsite drug checking. The second modality is offsite drug 20 checking. And the third modality is where, actually, a drug checking service provides onsite and offsite drug checking. Onsite modalities are where the drug testing or the drug checking takes place at an event, a festival or a club. Offsite is where the drug checking takes place in a drop in 25 centre, for example, or in an office. And where we have both modalities, where the service provides both onsite at a festival, for example, and has also a drop in centre where users bring their drugs to the drop in centre to get their test – their drugs tested. 30 B, the next question, I’ve been asked to “Describe the outcomes that drug checking services are seeking to achieve and the conditions or partnerships required to enable effective operation?” So probably, there’s three main objectives that drug checking services try to achieve. Is, the first one is an individual harm reduction service, to the user. So provide harm reduction advice based on the results of the drug check. A 35 second one is public health intervention, so service, which is more systemic. Which is, for example, also early warning system – being part of the early warning system would fall under that. And also market monitoring objective where you can use, just like we do at the 40 EMCDDA, with the drug checking data, actually monitor trends, be alerted by changing trends based on drug checking data, which is actually data tested, analytical data at user level. One particular aspect that is important from the objectives of drug checking services is, really, understanding why they were developed, also, and in the first instance it was that recreational drug users were a particularly hard to reach 45 population for health services. And drug checking services, actually, through their .PIRONA 9.9.19 P-2
SCII.013.022.0067 drug checking intervention have this objective, also, to reach this population, this target population. Providing not only the drug checking service, so the analytical test, but also 5 counselling with interventions and motivational interviewing. So providing this aspect of harm reduction besides the – just the results of an analytical test of the drugs. So how effective – so I’ve been asked in the third question to, “Discuss how effective drug checking services have been, to date, in achieving these outcomes?” The scientific literature still remains relatively limited in terms of very specific 10 objectives in regards to the outcomes of particular outcomes of drug checking. Primarily because it’s actually very difficult to – boil down the – impact of just the drug checking on particular outcomes like harm reduction outcomes. Which would be, reducing risk behaviours, reducing mortality in this setting. Because there are a 15 number of factors that actually influence these outcomes. The first one being individual factors from the drug user, and the – because we need to understand that drug taking involves a risk, in itself. So drug checking is not – the objective is not to get the user to stop using the drug and therefore making that risk go away, but is actually to provide, to provide information necessary to make an informed choice 20 about the risks that the user is going to take. A second point, also, is in order to increase the effectiveness of drug checking services and this brings me to one of the points that was asked to me in these questions was, “What partnerships are necessary to make this service effective?” 25 And this is – crucial in terms of providing a sound drug checking service is partnership, first and foremost with the local authorities and lawmakers. Because there are a number of legal aspects associated with drug checking that need to be taken into consideration when setting up drug checking. For example, every time a user provides a sample to be tested to a worker, a professional worker in the drug 30 checking service, the drug checking worker might incur the risk of being arrested for possession. If a sample of a drug needs to be transported to another lab, this will also have an effect, legal impact, in terms of trafficking. So lawmakers need to be involved in the 35 setting up of drug checking. Another point that is also important in terms of partnership is, obviously, with other health authorities like emergency services, they are crucial. And, obviously, law enforcement and, as we seen in Europe also, promoters of events. These are all partners that need to be involved in a drug checking service, especially offsite – or onsite, I mean, in festivals and clubs, but 40 also in drop in centres when it’s onsite. Another point that is important is also understanding the impact of the technology when that is used to provide the drug checking. And this will also have an impact on the effectiveness of the drug checking service in achieving certain goals, which is to 45 provide the most reliable information to the drug user. So you can have – and this will also then impact, subsequently, where the drug checking takes place, whether it’s at an event or in a drop in centre. So more advanced technology will allow you .PIRONA 9.9.19 P-3
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