PILL TESTING - Bonger Instituut

hol, and to a lesser extent cannabis. Pills are usually bought from a friend or a known
dealer before a night out. In buying ecstasy, knowing the dealer is considered far
more important than obtaining pills with a familiar logo or colour.
Extending the opening hours
Pills
Although ecstasy users did make some use of the office-plus services – which provided
office testing on Saturdays – the pills submitted were few in number. They
were also no more likely to be new or different pills (containing greater or lesser
amounts of MDMA) than those seen in the existing office hours. Nor was the willing-
ness of users to surrender their pills for lab testing any greater than on weekdays.
Hence, extending the opening hours does not seem to deliver more information
about the pill market.
Ecstasy users
Office-plus testing did not reach more ecstasy users, and it reached very few new
ones. The majority reported already using the services during ordinary office hours,
and they expressed little dissatisfaction about the days when the ordinary services
were open. Basically, some people that previously used the weekday services now
just shifted to using them on Saturday.
Viability
Whether extending the opening hours was practically viable depended heavily on the
policy priorities of the addiction care agencies and the local authorities in the region.
The practical implementation presented few real difficulties. In financial terms, officeplus
services entailed some modest additional costs.
Emergencies
Office-plus services basically offer the same potential for adequate emergency responses
as the existing offices.
Buses in nightlife areas
Pills
Pill testing in a bus parked in a night-time entertainment area was found to attract
greater numbers of pills submitted for testing than the office-plus services. It is uncertain
whether different segments of the pill market were also reached. Although the
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