David Penberthy: Pill testing must be supported by science, not vibes

Rushing to allow pill testing because some Greens MP likes dropping Es would be both defeatist and a knee-jerk reaction to something much more complex than Twitter debates allow, writes David Penberthy.

In light of the emerging clamour for the introduction of pill testing at music festivals, it’s time to recast some longstanding health and safety warnings in the drug space.

The famous “Drink. Drive. Bloody Idiot.” advertisement will be relaunched as “Drink. Drive Bloody Idiot… but if you really have to, take the backstreets and have a kebab first to soak up the booze.”.

The Quit Campaign’s “Every cigarette is doing you damage” warning will be rephrased with some provisos. “While every cigarette is doing you damage, you can probably smoke for a few years while you’re young, or have a couple when you’re tanked, and not suffer any long-term effects.”.

RELATED: Shorten must force NSW Labor to dump pill testing drug summit: Hazzard

For the record, I am not resolutely against the idea of pill-testing. What I am massively against is the reduction of such a complex policy idea, with such huge health and legal implications, to a vacuous 140-character tweet which states that any government or individual who opposes pill testing simply doesn’t care whether young people keep dying.

Of course no-one wants these young people to die. Yet we now find ourselves at a point where it has been asserted by many that the next time a young person keels over at a rave in Sydney, there is one person we can all blame for that, and her name is Gladys Berejiklian.

The March for Pill Testing held outside Sydney Town Hall last week. Picture: Monique Harmer

In what might be a new low in policymaking in Australia, this week saw NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann demand the introduction of pill testing on the basis of all the dumb stuff she did while she was young, even though in her case the dumb stuff has followed her into adult life.

In an excruciatingly undergraduate “think” piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, this hip-and-happening MP documented her own history of popping party pills with so much wistful relish that she almost sounded like she was bragging.

The piece reflected the defeatist mindset that some people are going to take risks anyway so we should make the risks less risky.

It also served as a stellar example of the modern capacity for personal experience and belief to trump research and knowledge.

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think we should change public policy because a Greens MP likes dropping Es and dancing in the dark to the Chemical Brothers.

RELATED: Greens MP deserves the boot for boasting about drugs

We should change public policy because there is a soberminded consensus among health experts — and also the police — that the best way to make things safer for young people is to go down the pill-testing path.

From my reading of things, despite some impassioned and persuasive voices in the health space, a medical consensus does not yet exist. And among the nation’s police leadership, the opposition to the change is resolute.

Obviously, all those Twitter hipsters will guffaw at the police having any standing in this debate, but they should, as they have the most advanced knowledge of how these drugs are produced and distributed both here and abroad.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said this week that there is no such thing as a pure or reliable form of these drugs.

“There is ample evidence that these drugs are not safe,” he said. “Even those with absolute purity.”

It’s a point backed up by Tony Wood, whose daughter Anna died ages just 15 in 1995 after taking ecstasy. The coroner found the tablet Anna took was pure MDMA, and although she drank a lot of water, as advised when using the drug, her kidneys­ shut down. She died of acute water intoxication after two days on life support.

“The thing is that drugs are idiosyncratic so you don’t know how they are going to affect­ anyone on any given day,” Mr Wood said.

His remarks go to one of the great medical unknowns that those who advocate pill testing struggle to address.

Every person can react differently to a substance, and every person is in different physical condition when they take a substance. If I briefly can take my cue from Cate Faehrmann with a bit of experiential policymaking, every dumb decision I made as a young person occurred when I was already blind drunk.

MORE FROM DAVID PENBERTHY: Booze and cigarettes are not the same

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian tells Sunrise she does not support pill testing.

How is the pill-tester supposed to know what kind of shape the person with the pills is in?

Especially when the person with the pills is extremely keen to take them, and will no doubt avoid divulging any information that will make that less likely?

If we embrace pill testing, we are putting 100 per cent of our trust in the people that make and sell these drugs.

And by “people” I mean Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, an Asian drug triad, your local outlaw motorcycle gang, a bunch of weirdos in a loft above some Amsterdam doof-doof club.

And the message pill-testing sends is exactly as outlined in the opening paragraphs above. It says that there is a safe, or safer, way to do this.
The most dispiriting part of the idea for mind is that it takes the defeatist underpinnings of the methadone program — a substitute drug for adults who have never shaken the curse of heroin addiction — and applies that to people who have just finished their HSC.

It is conceivable that rather than saving more lives, it could cost more, as it has the effect of normalising drugs so dramatically that other kids like Anna Wood could conclude that surely one pill can’t kill you. I mean, I tested it, right?

@penbo