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Pill testing at festivals has been used successfully for more than a decade in New Zealand, the UK and Europe. Photograph: Andy Drysdale/Rex Features
Pill testing at festivals has been used successfully for more than a decade in New Zealand, the UK and Europe. Photograph: Andy Drysdale/Rex Features

Testing of illicit drugs to be done at Australian event for first time

This article is more than 6 years old

ACT agrees to allow pill testing at music festival and harm-minimisation groups hope the rest of the country will follow suit

The ACT government has agreed to allow pill testing at a coming music festival, in an effort to reduce deaths and harm to young people taking illicit drugs.

It’s the first time the long called for process has been allowed to operate at an Australian event, and harm minimisation advocates have labelled it a win.

Safety Testing and Advisory Service at Festivals and Events (STA-Safe) would conduct the drug-testing service at the the Spilt Milk festival on 25 November, the ACT health minister, Meegan Fitzharris, said on Friday.

Those attending the festival will be able to take their drugs to the testing site – run by trained professionals and not monitored by police – to find out more about the ingredients, but they will be advised that the testing process has limitations and cannot identify every substance in a sample.

They will then have the choice of dumping the drugs in amnesty bins, which will be destroyed on site, or holding on to them. Every participant will be warned by trained counsellors about the health risks of taking illicit drugs.

Fitzharris said the danger and legal implications of taking illicit drugs had not changed, but evidence showed pill testing would help keep young people safe.

“In 2015, several people aged between 19 and 26 tragically lost their lives in Australia,” Fitzharris said.

“Pill testing means young people who are considering taking drugs can be informed about what’s really in the their pills and how potent they are. And it creates an opportunity to remind them of the risks before they make the final decision to take a drug.”

The announcement follows more than a year of negotiations between the ACT government, law enforcement bodies, event promoters and the STA-Safe consortium – led by Harm Reduction Australia, Australian Drug Observatory, Noffs Foundation, DanceWize and Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

It was hoped testing – which involves scraping a small sample of the substance for analysis – would go ahead at last year’s event, and at the Groovin’ The Moo festival, but agreements were not reached in time.

Matt Noffs, chief executive of the Noffs Foundation, praised the ACT government’s “political courage”, and hoped other governments would follow suit.

“We needed to have a way to reduce the harm associated with drug-taking at music festivals,” he said. “This is not only a historic but a critical step for Australia to take.”

Noffs said drug-harm minimisation in Australia had not achieved such a positive move since the introduction of needle-exchange programs and safe-injecting rooms.

“It reminds me of the courage [former NSW premier] Bob Carr displayed in the 90s and early 2000s when he did allow a medically supervised injection room, which has since saved countless lives,” he said.

“I really hope that other governments can see the sense in this and that as we go to pick the next state for this to happen, we can work with a government that is as courageous as the ACT.”

Pill testing at festivals has been used successfully for more than a decade in New Zealand, the UK and Europe.

About 20% of substances tested at New Zealand music festivals last year were a different drug to what the buyers believed them to be, and 11% had other ingredients as well.

In January, three people died and 30 overdosed on MDMA after taking pills from a “bad batch” of Ecstasy in Melbourne, prompting advocates to step up calls for testing.

One month later, 31 people were treated after overdosing on GHB at the Electric Parade music festival.

Polling conducted last year found 57% of people supported pill testing, and only 13% opposed it. Support was highest among those aged over 55.

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