DRUG CHECKING

 People who use drugs have a right to use drugs, and to know what is in their drugs. Learn more and make the choices you want to. 

 Drug-checking services that can tell you the ingredients and approximate concentrations of your drug. The technology allows you to find the ingredients in your sample, rather than only being able to look for certain ingredients. Technicians can check your pills, powders, crystals, liquids, or tabs! All that is needed is a sample of the size of a grain of rice, and we will give it back to you.

Drug-checking is a legal, public health service. 

 

Locations and Hours

KELOWNA

Tuesday – Friday
12 pm – 5pm at Outreach Urban Health (1649 Pandosy St.)

Contact the team 250-864-1431 or drugchecking@interiorhealth.ca

UBC Okanagan Campus

Services are now over until September! Please access community locations.

CAN’T MAKE IT DURING OUR DRUG-CHECKING HOURS? NO PROBLEM! YOU CAN DROP YOUR SAMPLE OFF WITH ONE OF OUR TRUSTED PARTNERS. FOR DROP-OFF SAMPLES, RESULTS CAN TAKE 1 – 7 DAYS, AND WE ARE UNABLE TO RETURN YOUR SAMPLE TO YOU.

Outreach Urban Health
(1649 Pandosy St.), Saturday – Sunday, 11am – 10pm

What Happens At Drug Checking

What happens at drug-checking stays at drug checking. We also want to make the process as comfortable as possible. So, we provide snacks and other swag, and try to find cool artwork and lamps!

When you arrive, we will show you into our drug-checking office. We will ask you what your drug is and if you have tried it before. If you have, we will ask if you had any strange reactions. This information helps us do our job better – like a sommelier, we want to know what you are expecting and how to help you achieve that outcome. So, if we find ingredients you are not expecting, we can tell you how it might change your experience.

We will place your sample on our FTIR machine, and we will analyze it using our software. We also use fentanyl and benzodiazepine test strips. Then, we give you your results! This whole process takes 5 – 10 minutes.