Download the presentation slides and catch up on our webinar on-demand now for essential information on cathinones.
Understanding cathinones, and how they’re increasingly being detected in stimulant-type substances such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and MDMA, is vital for anyone who works with people who use drugs.
Cathinone is a psychoactive compound isolated from the Khat plant in the 1970s. There are now over 160 types of synthetic cathinones detected in the unregulated drug market, which are increasingly used as adulterants or substitutes for other stimulant drugs
This webinar will provide essential information to frontline and health workers on practices for reducing harm from cathinones.
This webinar is hosted by Dr Jake Dizard, Senior Research Officer at Penington Institute.
About our speaker
Steph Tzanetis is the CanTEST Coordinator at Directions Health and has been involved in the fixed site drug checking service as a CAHMA peer worker and Pill Testing Australia (PTA) representative.
CanTEST opened in July 2022 and is Australia’s first fixed-site drug checking service, operating in Canberra’s Civic. Since the CanTEST service opened, the chemist team, in partnership with the Australian National University, has been able to characterise four world-first drug detections, including a new cathinone.
At CanTEST clients can receive qualitative and quantitative results in person. About half of samples presented to the service are either in-part or entirely different to what clients are expecting and cathinones are regularly detected as adulterants or complete substitutes for other more commonly known stimulants.
