Senior doctors have pleaded with the NSW Premier to conduct pill-testing trials and to abandon the “abhorrent” practice of strip searching young people.

An open letter, signed by more than 20 heads of department at inner Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital, called for the adoption of policies with evidence of reducing drug harms and deaths.

“We have seen the serious harms done to individuals, families and communities by these drugs,” says the letter, written by St Vincent’s acute pain service director Dr Jennifer Stevens and co-signed by 26 fellow doctors.

“As front-line clinicians, we wish to see the adoption of policies most likely to minimise this damage.