A fed-up fellowship of medical professionals are teaming up to roll out pill testing at New South Wales music festivals whether the government likes it or not. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the government have already come out saying they definitely do not like it.
As ABC News reports, Dr Alex Wodak, president of the Drug Law Reform Foundation, says he and a team of fellow doctors want to begin pill testing at music festivals in order to save the lives of young punters, seven of whom have died in the past 12 months after taking drugs at festivals.
“The number of these deaths seems to be increasing,” Dr Wodak told ABC News, “the number of the presentations to emergency departments of people attending these events is increasing, and it doesn’t have to be like this.”
The group are hoping to raise $100,000 to cover the cost of equipment for one event as well as an independent review to measure the program’s impact on drug harms. Dr Wodak would like to see a few generous benefactors contribute with any shortfall made up for by a crowdfunding campaign.
“People who test drugs at these events can find out that the drug that they’ve just bought is dangerous [and] would risk their life if they took it,” he said. “When people hear that they throw the drugs away. The current police policy, which relies on saturation policing with sniffer dogs, seems to have failed.”
NSW Premier Mike Baird, not content with merely being out of touch on the issue of his state’s dimwitted lockout laws, told ABC News that Dr Wodak’s proposal was “absolutely ridiculous” and insisted the police’s current methods to combat drug use are working.
“We’re in a position that we absolutely do not support that in any way. There is a very safe way to go about pills and that is don’t take them,” he said. “There are police efforts on a daily basis cracking down on these drug dealers that are trying to infiltrate our youth… and we will continue to do that.”
Okay, speed round: despite having what Mr Baird insists is a very effective anti-drug program in Australia, we’ve just witnessed one of the deadliest summer festival seasons on record, with a total of seven punters losing their lives in the past 12 months.
Meanwhile, it’s the opinion of just about everybody who’s educated on the subject that Australia’s drug war is failing miserably. According to a recent investigation by Gold Walkley award-winning reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna, arrests of drug users are spiking whilst arrests of dealers remain stagnant.
You don’t have to look far to see our current approach is a flop. A police operation conducted at Secret Garden Festival on the weekend yielded just seven charges on the first day. It should be noted that Secret Garden has an attendance of around 3,000 people.
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But Mr Baird argued that allowing pill testing would in effect be condoning drug dealing and use. “That’s what this is about,” the Premier told ABC News. “The Deputy Premier has made many comments about this and I reiterate that today.”
Indeed, Deputy Premier and Police Minister Troy Grant has gone on record saying pill testing would never happen under his watch and that there’s no proof that pill testing does anything to save lives, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary.
“That’s deeply disappointing,” Dr Wodak said of Mr Grant’s attitude. “There are mothers that have lost their kids from this that want this. We would hope that if he [will not] listen to us, at least listen to the mothers.”
