Falls revellers back calls for pill testing as police continue festival drug blitz

Sniffer dogs are out in force at festivals as Falls Festival revellers overwhelmingly back calls for on-site pill testing.

Police have continued a blitz at the Falls festival.

FALLS festival punters have overwhelmingly backed a growing push for pill testing at music festivals following a wave of deadly overdoses.

Revellers at Falls Byron Bay yesterday said pill testing was urgently needed to save lives after five fatal overdoses at festivals in NSW and Victoria.

Palaszczuk government considers pill-testing program | The Courier-Mail

Brisbane man Joshua Tam, 22, died at the Lost Paradise festival on the NSW Central Coast last weekend, while two other men were rushed to hospital in a critical condition after overdosing at the Beyond the Valley event in Victoria.

One of them, a 20-year-old from Mansfield, has since died.

Police with sniffer dogs search people at Falls Festival at Byron Bay.

Renewed calls for festival pill testing came amid a continued police blitz at Falls in the wake of the overdoses.

The Courier-Mail yesterday saw police sniffer dogs pouncing on several patrons suspected of trying to smuggle drugs into the North Byron Parklands precinct.

Inside the festival, revellers said they would support pill testing for the sake of public safety.

“We need it 100 per cent to save lives,” said Tweed Coast woman Alyse Roberts, 23, who was at Falls with mates Laura Elliott, Keneeka Gorter and Bella Staracek.

“Pills might be illegal but it isn’t going to stop people from doing them.”

New Zealand visitor Saret Lam, 29, said the best way to avoid an overdose was to “stay safe and don’t do drugs”.

But his girlfriend, Yasemin Dere, 26, of Germany, said she had seen pill testing at festivals in Amsterdam and believed it was “a good thing”.

Alyse Roberts, 23, Laura Elliott, 21, Keneeka Gorter, 21, and Bella Staracek, 19, are ready to rock at Falls Festival, Byron Bay.

“Especially for young people when they are trying it (pills) for the first time,” she said.

Health Minister Steven Miles said the State Government would consider the results of a pill testing trial at the Groovin the Moo Festival in Canberra before deciding whether to allow pill testing in Queensland.

But with the summer festival season only halfway through, several big events will provide Queensland drug squads with a policing challenge.

The Pineapple Fields festival is on the Sunshine Coast on January 12, before UK dance music legends The Prodigy take to the Riverstage on January 28, followed by St Jerome’s Laneway festival in Brisbane on February 2.

Police with sniffer dogs search three people (without success) at Falls Festival at Byron Bay.

Queensland Mental Health Commissioner Ivan Frkovic said pill testing was urgently needed “to broaden our arsenal against drugs”.

“Drug testing at festivals is a golden opportunity for direct intervention by medical professionals and counsellors,” he said.

“Once young people know the drug’s real contents, it changes their attitude and behaviour.

“There needs to be more sensible, sophisticated and effective responses to a complex issue than just a message of abstinence, because young people will test boundaries and experiment.”

NSW Police said they would release arrest figures for Falls at Byron when the festival finished today.

Originally published as Falls revellers back calls for pill testing as police continue festival drug blitz