As the social service providers handed out fruit snacks and water bottles on Thursday, down the block from a needle exchange on Berkeley’s University Avenue, they asked passers-by an unusual question: Did they want to “check” their drugs?

Naila Vitatoe explained the operation to a middle-aged man. She works for an Oakland nonprofit that analyzes street drugs for unwanted chemicals — a dash of fentanyl in a bag of tar heroin, for instance, or an emerging industrial chemical that sears the veins of users.

Vitatoe and her colleagues take a small sample and test it with a machine that beams infrared light. Within minutes, they return the drug to the user, along with information about its true contents and safety advice. All free of charge.

The man left and reappeared five minutes later with

See Full Page