Tory Shepherd: We must see pill testing for what it really is

IT IS a fact that young people will take illicit drugs. All the sniffer dogs in the world won’t stop them. The best thing we can do is try to give them the best information there is, writes Tory Shepherd.

GROOVIN’ the Moo sounds like a euphemism for a lewd sex act, but it’s apparently quite the cool music festival.

A quick image search shows many young people making the “ridgey didge” finger sign, a universal symbol of simple joy.

But — cue ominous music — festival goers have been taking drugs. Well, trying to — it turns out some of them forked out their pocket money for caffeine pills.

We know that because the ACT leg of the travelling festival had pill testing. It was a collaboration between the ACT Government, ACT Police, and a mob called Safety and Testing and Advisory Service at Festivals and Events.

(Which sounds a bit like a health check you’d need after ‘groovin’ the moo’.)

About 130 people participated with 85 samples tested. Two returned “deadly” samples.

About half were pure MDMA (ecstasy) and another half included sweeteners, and paint.

Once they got results, the punters were free to ditch the rest of the drugs (in an “amnesty bin”) or take them.

Here’s guessing those with deadly pills put them in the bin.

Adelaide hosted Groovin’ the Moo last Friday. But there was no pill testing.

Premier Steven Marshall is dead against it. He says testing pills would send the message that there’s such a thing as safe drugs.

Thing is, there are safer drugs. Your run-of-the-mill MDMA pill is safer than, say, whatever deadly crap was found in pills at the Canberra gig.

Adelaide Groovin’ the Moo goers had a great time, despite drug takers being at a greater risk than their Canberra mates. (Pic: Morgan Sette)

In Adelaide, it’s entirely possible that there were similarly lethal concoctions. It’s also possible that a young hedonist, glowstick in one hand and pill in the other, might have died.

It’s also possible that her parents, or more likely her friends, would be able to say afterwards that she would have had the deadly pill tested, if she’d been able to.

So it’s possible she would be still recovering from the festival, discarded glowstick on bedroom floor, dusty but alive.

What evidence there is shows pill testing works — although said evidence is patchy. It’s a bit hard to get a control group of festival-goers with drugs, dodgy or otherwise.

The Public Health Association of Australia points to European countries with pill testing — Australian research found half of those who had their drugs tested changed their choices.

Most said they wouldn’t take the drug and — importantly — warn friends if there were negative results.

Pill testing also gives an opportunity to give support and information to drug users, the Association notes.

A paper published in April by Deakin University criminology lecturer Andrew Groves looks at pill testing “through a lens of pragmatism” and concludes that pill testing should be part of Australia’s overall harm minimisation strategy. While it’s not a “silver bullet”, pill testing reduces overdoses and improves services, he argues.

The crowd is seen cheering at Groovin’ the Moo in Adelaide. (Pic: Morgan Sette)

Professor Alison Witter, in the wake of the death of 19-year-old Georgina Bartter at a music festival in 2014, had even more reasons. The University of NSW professor and drug policy expert points to research that shows pill testing changes the black market — if there are warnings about a bad batch, it’s removed, or people won’t buy it.

Pill testing also means researchers have better access to long-term data, so they know more about the drug scene.

And it can be an early warning system for people who haven’t even bought drugs yet.

There are plenty of good reasons for at least rolling out a large-scale trial of pill testing, while the arguments against are vague and dopey — testing ‘sends the wrong message’ or wouldn’t be perfect, therefore we should forget about it.

It is a fact that young people will take illicit drugs. All the sniffer dogs in the world won’t stop them.

The best thing we can do is try to ensure their drugs aren’t deadly, and to use the ‘open door’ of pill testing to give them the best information there is, and encourage them to tell their friends.

The worst thing we can do is have moralising diehards — swilling Shiraz and with a bellyful of benzos — pontificating about the evil of drugs. They’re either hypocritical, having taken drugs themselves, or hopeless naifs, pretending their children never will.

Back to Groovin’ the Moo. Those results showed that drugs are dangerous often and a waste of money much of the time.

They proved that taking drugs is like Russian roulette, a lethal game of chance.

Only it’s not all chance, or it doesn’t have to be.

Pill testing, based on what we currently know, can shift the odds in favour of the partygoer.

It could mean the difference between a tripping teen stumbling through the house at 3am, to the silence when they never come home at all.