Austria's Mobile Drug Lab Could Test Street-Drug Effects, Too

carmendrahl writes "In Austria, people can submit their street drugs to a lab-on-a-bus to ensure they got what they paid for. The government is using the bus to track emergence of new variants of bath salts and other drugs. Now, researchers have developed a test they'd like to add to the bus's offerings: it assesses drug action (full paper) instead of just reporting chemical structure."

Comments

Yes, Austria has a drug problem: Alcohol

[Anonymous Coward]

As an Austrian, I can confirm that we've got a huge drug problem. But it is not really designer drugs, coke or heroin, it is simply Alcohol. Beer and Wine (as well as the cider-like "Most" in my region) have a long tradition, and are the socially accepted ways of killing yourself slowly with chemicals. Unlike illegal drugs there are strong economic incentives to keep it that way, though. Illegal drugs are really negible problem, as terrible it may be to the individual.

Re:Nothing special

[avandesande]

Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen- tests like this might work well at finding specific compounds but don't work very well at finding toxins or impurities. Theses tests are going to give users a false sense of security.