March 31 is the first ever International Drug Checking Day

The first International Day of Drug Checking takes place on March 31.

One aim of the day is to promote harm reduction initiatives and reduce drug-related risks, but also to ensure people are educated on drugs and aware of their effects.

The organisations involved, including The Loop and DanceSafe, are also using it to highlight the accessibility of home reagent kits, which use a liquid chemical to test the authenticity of a substance.

We also want people to know that they can check their drugs at home using reagent test kits," the press release reads.

"These can be bought online and can give a good indication of what a substance might be. While we know there are limitations to using reagents we still believe this is a great way to reduce risk and an essential way to introduce people to finding out more about harm reduction."

However, there are limitations as reagent kits can only identify the existence of a substance, rather than test the purity.

On the day, there will be tips and advice on drug checking, test kit giveaways and AMAs from harm reduction experts.

More information can be found using the following: #JustSayKnow, #IDCDay2017 and #TestIt.

Head here for more information.

Dave Turner is Mixmag's Digital News Editor, follow him on Twitter