Drug-checking service Know Your Stuff NZ will be back in Wānaka later this month, offering free, discreet and legal drug-testing.

The first Wānaka clinic will take place this Saturday (December 14) and Know Your Stuff NZ will return on December 28 for a second local clinic.

Backed by funding from Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC), the clinics allow people to find out whether their drugs have any unexpected ingredients in them before consumption.

"We want to spread the word that we're here to help," KYSNZ general manager Casey Spearin told the Wānaka App.

"Our service is really important for a number of reasons. Obviously, by checking we can identify whether there are dangerous things in circulation, which can quickly become a big problem at an event.”

She said Know Your Stuff NZ had seen some “pretty shocking things” come through testing.

“There were some samples in Wellington recently that were supposed to be MDMA but were actually mercury chloride, which is incredibly toxic.”

In addition, last December just before New Year’s the organisation detected Alpha-D2PV, a dangerous synthetic drug, during a clinic.

It’s not uncommon to find drugs are not what they’ve been sold as, Casey said.

"We find between 10-15 percent of what we test is not what it's supposed to be. It can be a huge range of things instead.

“Sometimes it's baking powder and it's harmless and sometimes it's very harmful things, such as nitazenes, which are another class of synthetic opioid that's even more potent than fentanyl."

In addition to the testing, the clinics provide an opportunity for visitors to discuss their drug use and behaviours.

"People tell us they won't talk to their family doctor about drug use but after we've run their sample through the spectrometer and explained the results, they can be more open to talk to us,” Casey said.

Casey said Queenstown Lakes has some of the highest cocaine and party-drug use in the country.

The district is a priority for Know Your Stuff NZ and it hopes to obtain more funding to become established in the region.

Know Your Stuff NZ was formed in 2015 with an ethos of harm reduction - a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing the negative consequences associated with drug use.

It is supported by health services, NGOs, and NZ Police, and protected by legislation, and “...in general the police are very supportive of what we do”, Casey said. 

The upcoming Wānaka Know Your Stuff NZ drug testing clinics will take place at the Wānaka Community Hub on Saturday (December 14) from midday-4pm and Saturday December 28, from 2pm-7pm.

PHOTO: Supplied