NZ Drug Foundation Te Puna Whakaiti Pāmamae Kai Whakapiri has been a licensed drug checking service provider since late 2021.
The data in this report only relates to drug checking clinics operated by the NZ Drug Foundation. We have the privilege of working alongside KnowYourStuffNZ and Drug Injecting Services Canterbury (DISC) Trust, who also provide drug checking services across Aotearoa.
We are able to achieve this through the support of the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science (PHF Science, formerly ESR), who provide confirmatory testing, equipment maintenance and scientific guidance for drug checking services.
The University of Auckland also holds a drug checking license for specific projects on psychedelics.
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Find your nearest clinic on thelevel.org.nz
1. Check in
We give each person a code name to keep them anonymous.
2. We take a sample
We ask some questions and take a small sample of the drug for checking – about 10mg, roughly the size of a match head. We give the rest back.
3. We check it
We use a range of tools to check people’s drugs, including:
Spectrometer: A machine that matches a light waveform reading of a sample against a database of more than 25,000 substances.
Reagents: Chemicals that change colour when they react with certain drugs.
Test strips: Strips that show if fentanyl or benzodiazepines are present in a sample.
4. We say what we found
We call out a person’s code name when their results are ready.
We return any remaining samples, then have a private conversation about what we’ve found and ways to stay safer.
In some cases, we may ask for permission to send a sample for further checking.
We can safely dispose of anything a person doesn’t want to keep, but we won’t confiscate drugs under any circumstances.
How many drugs did we check in 2025?
2025 was our fourth full year operating as a licensed drug checking provider.
Excluding clinics inside festivals and events, samples tested at our public community clinics increased 12% in 2025.
In 2025 we held 137 drug checking clinics across 16 different venues in four regions. This is compared to 141 clinics in 2024, 98 clinics in 2023, and 73 clinics in 2022.
2025 was our first full year operating a 5-day-a-week service at our Auckland office. This service accounted for 78% of public clinic samples we tested.
Our diverse team have different backgrounds and experiences, but we all share the goal of reducing drug harm in Aotearoa.”
– Alana, drug checker
How many people were new to drug checking?
In March 2024 we started recording if people were new to drug checking or whether they had used any drug checking service in Aotearoa before.
This helps us to understand how successfully we are growing the service.
Of the people who were comfortable answering, 58% had previously used drug checking services in Aotearoa while 42% had never used a drug checking service before.
This compares to 40% who had never used a drug checking service before and 60% had used drug checking service from March-December 2024.