Feature
State of play: For and against pill testing
This summer has already seen two overdose deaths and a number of hospitalisations at Australian music festivals, re-energising the debate over the implementation of pill testing. newsGP explores various aspects of the debate.
The debate over pill testing at music festivals continues – as do overdose deaths.
The issue of pill testing, it seems, will not be going away any time soon.
This Christmas and New Year’s holiday has already seen two overdose deaths and several hospitalisations following drug overdoses at music festivals.
But despite a successful pill testing trial at Canberra’s Groovin the Moo festival in April 2018, as well as growing non-partisan support for pill testing at music festivals among the public, political leaders remain reluctant to implement the measure.
‘We have to remember that these substances are illegal and they’re illegal for a reason. One pill can kill and we need to educate our young people that you don't need to be on drugs to have a good time at a concert,’ deputy leader of Queensland’s Liberal National Party, Tim Mander, stated last week.
However, an anonymous opinion piece published in The Age, I know all the risks but I’m still going to take drugs at festivals, underscores the reasons why such an approach is unlikely to work.
‘For many, the solution to drug-related deaths is much simpler than pill testing: just stop taking them,’ the 21-year-old anonymous author wrote.
‘Anyone who has been to a festival in the past few years would quickly realise that as long as this attitude continues, deaths will continue.’
Arguments against pill testing
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has expressed concerns that pill testing would give people a ‘false sense of security’ and promote further drug use among young people.
‘We do not support a culture that says it is okay to take illegal drugs, and I am worried about the number of people who attend these events who think it is okay to take illegal drugs,’ she said last year following two drug overdoses at Sydney’s Defqon 1 festival.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has also ruled out pill testing under his leadership, stating ‘there is no safe level at which these substances can be taken’.
This stance was recently further confirmed by Victoria’s acting Health Minister Martin Foley, who said that ‘advice from Victoria Police tells us [pill testing] can give people a false, and potentially fatal, sense of security about illicit drugs’.
Arguments for pill testing
Associate Professor David Caldicott, designer of the Groovin the Moo pill testing trial and emergency consultant with a special interest in toxicology, believes the trial was very successful. He has been a vocal supporter of this kind of harm-minimisation approach as the best way to help stop further festival deaths.
‘There is pretty conclusive evidence that people who identify their drugs as being something other than what they expected at music festivals do something other than take those drugs,’ he told newsGP late last year.
‘So if they’re not putting their drugs in their mouth then they’re less likely to overdose. It’s pretty straightforward.’
Associate Professor Caldicott has been very disappointed by continued reluctance to implement pill testing at music festivals.
‘As long as we continue to do what we’re doing in Australia in regards to drug policy, we’ll continue to get the same results,’ he said.
Dr Hester Wilson, GP and Chair of the RACGP Specific Interests Addiction Medicine network, agrees.
‘Pill testing saves lives – that’s the bottom line,’ she told newsGP late last year.
‘Let’s allow people to check their pills so they can be sure that they’re safe.’
Dr Wilson said that while it is preferable that people do not engage in risky drug-taking behaviours, the reality is that they do, which makes pill testing ‘an absolute no-brainer’.
‘There might be a few more people that take [drugs], but it [would be] safer,’ she said.
‘It’s about danger for me. I don’t understand why the politicians find it so hard to think through this.’
There is also strong support among the public, with a recent survey conducted by Essential Report finding that 59% of respondents support a pill testing policy, while only 17% oppose it.
Ms Adriana Buccianti, who lost her son to overdose at the Rainbow Serpent Festival in Victoria seven years ago, has a poignant question for policy makers.
‘What would you do if that was your son or daughter? Would you not want somebody to do something about it?’ she told the ABC.
‘I’d like them to … think what it would be like for their kids never to come back. This is what I have to go through every day.
‘They have the power to be able to put a safety net in place.’
Changing attitudes?
There are signs, in the wake of the latest two music festival overdose deaths, that the hard-line anti-pill testing position may be changing in NSW, with opposition leader Michael Daley declaring that pill testing should ‘not be off the table’.
‘Just say no is not the answer. We can’t... close the door on some possible solutions,’ he said.
Premier Berejiklian has also indicated a softening of her stance on pill testing, stating that her government would consider the measure if provided evidence it would save lives.
‘If there was a way in which we could ensure that lives were saved through pill testing we would consider it, but there is no evidence provided to the government on that,’ she said.
Dr Christian Rowan, a Queensland Liberal National Party MP and former President of the Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association, has – in contrast to his colleague Mr Mander – spoken out in support of potential pill testing.
‘We need to understand as legislators and as a community that within the comprehensive range of strategies to reduce harms, that we need to consider this [pill testing],’ he said.
Even the former Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Mick Palmer, would like to see a change in drug policy.
‘When are we going to learn that threats and our current “Just Say No” campaign are not working?’ he said in a statement.
‘Pill testing is not a silver bullet, but it’s a proven and positive way to help prevent this kind of tragedy, has majority support from Australians and must be at least trialled on a pilot basis.’
harm minimisation illicit drugs Pill testing
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