Calls for pill testing facilities at music festivals have been sparked again following a Queensland bush rave that resulted in one death and two more fighting for their lives.
It has been reported that an unidentified drug was the cause of the death and additional hospitalisations, while two more punters at the YewbuNYE event believed to have taken the substance fled into the bush when offered treatment.
As ABC reports, doctor David Caldicot said music festivals in Europe that provide pill testing facilities has resulted in fewer people using drugs.
"And as a consequence, reduce the change of people overdosing," Caldicot said.
"The tragedy of this is the inevitability of it and we're not doing everything we can to stop it."
Caldicot is confident that the 26-year-old who died at the bush rave took synthetic drugs.
"And now left waiting for up to weeks for what caused this overdose, whereas if a drug-checking team was onsite we might already know," he said.
Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Doctor, Alex Wodak, has also backed support for pill testing facilities.
"I don't think any other government — state, territory or Commonwealth — has expressed a view in favour of pill testing or trial of pill testing," Wodak told ABC.
"It's a supposition that this might increase drug use, but if it does increase drug use but decrease the number of deaths, surely that's what we should be focusing on."
However, the NSW government has again distanced itself from the idea, saying that pill testing facilities cannot guarantee the safety of illegal substances.
"The NSW Government will not facilitate or sanction the testing of illegal drugs, creating the dangerous fiction that they are then safe to consume," a spokesperson for NSW Police Minister Troy Grant said.
Comments