Deaths and overdoses prompt coroner pill testing call

It was in April last year that an 18-year-old Melbourne man attended the Dreamstate music festival – he would never come home.
 
Once he arrived, the man took three MDMA pills, and within hours he was unconscious.
 
Five days later, the heart-breaking decision was made to switch off his life support and he died in hospital.
 
Those are the coronial findings handed down by Coroner Simon McGregor last week, which found it was possible the capsules contained a higher dose of MDMA than the man expected, and it is also likely they contained methylone, a stimulant of the synthetic cathinone class.
 
‘I cannot be certain that, had a drug checking service existed, [he] would have used that service, or indeed changed his drug consumption behaviour on the basis of any information gleaned,’ he said.
 
‘But such a service would at least have provided the opportunity for him to do so and for him to receive tailored harm reduction information from the drug checking facility.’
 
It is one of a growing list of similar cases, leading two coroners to throw their weight behind calls for a Victorian pill testing trial.
 
They said while there is no guarantee the service would have been utilised in their respective cases, or acted as a deterrent, it would have at least provided an opportunity to learn more about the drugs in their possession and make informed decisions. 
 
And it is a plan the RACGP has also backed, once again adding its voice to calls for change on Tuesday.
 
RACGP Victoria Chair Dr Anita Muñoz said action must be taken immediately to stop ‘pointless overdose deaths from happening again and again’.
 
‘It seems like every other week we hear reports of young people overdosing at events such as music festivals,’ she said.
 
‘Now, we have yet another set of coronial recommendations urging the Government to act and introduce pill testing. We know that pill testing saves lives, so the time for talk is over, we need action.
 
‘Every day we delay is another day that people can experience overdoses and be hospitalised, or worse.’
 
In a second case handed down in the Coroner’s Court last week, a 38-year-old man died after injecting what he thought was heroin.
 
However, a toxicology report returned a positive result for metonitazene, a member of the nitazene drug family which can be 300 times stronger than morphine.
 
Coroner Ingrid Giles found the Wangaratta man appeared to be unaware he was consuming the dangerous synthetic opioid and that his death was the ‘unintentional consequence of the deliberate ingestion of drugs’.
 
‘The trial of a drug checking service represents a concrete opportunity to help to save the lives of people in the Victorian community and constitutes a mechanism for those who use drugs to be better informed of the unknown and potentially dangerous substances in those drugs,’ she found.
 
Since 2021, five coronial recommendations have been made for drug checking services in Victoria, to reduce the risk of similar deaths occurring in the future.
 
Victoria has witnessed a spate of illicit drug overdoses in recent months, including a 23-year-old man who died after being airlifted from the Pitch Music and Arts Festival, and eight Hardmission Festival attendees who were hospitalised and placed in an induced coma.
 
The introduction of drug testing services is not without precedent in Australia.
 
Last year, the Queensland Government announced the rollout of fixed and mobile sites to chemically test illicit drugs and check for the presence of potentially dangerous substances, while the ACT offers pill testing at events such as music festivals, on top of a fixed site.
 
RACGP Specific Interests Addiction Medicine Chair, Dr Hester Wilson, said testing is not about condoning illicit drug use, but providing a safe space where trained staff can speak with illicit drug users about the potential dangers free of judgement.
 
‘There is no use sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that people don’t use illicit drugs, it is a reality of life. Instead, we should minimise the harm and keep people as safe as possible,’ Dr Wilson said.
 
‘Drug overdoses don’t happen to “other people”, it could be your son or daughter, or friend. We have the solutions; we know what to do.
 
‘A punitive “war on drugs” mindset gets us nowhere fast. At the end of the day – every person’s life matters.’
 
Earlier this year, Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan said her government had ‘no current plans to change the policy setting’ but confirmed she is seeking advice.
 
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addiction medicine harm minimisation illicit drugs pill testing