Bill Shorten on drug use: ‘I might’ve taken something’

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has conceded he may have taken illegal drugs during his university years. His comments come in the midst of the pill testing debate and after a Greens MP admitted she’s taken ecstasy or MDMA occasionally since her 20s.

OPPOSITION Leader Bill Shorten has conceded he may have taken illegal drugs during his university years.

While touring a train manufacturing plant during his pre-election blitz of Queensland, the Labor leader was asked if he could rule out taking illicit drugs.

Federal Labor Opposition Leader Bill Shorten with wife Chloe and daughter Clementine, 9, on the Sunshine Coast during their Queensland blitz. Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

“I have actually answered this before,” Mr Shorten said.

“I can’t rule out in my university years, I might have taken — done something.”

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His comments come in the midst of the pill testing debate that has attracted national attention, and after NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann admitted she has taken ecstasy or MDMA occasionally since her 20s.

Cate Faehrmann admitted she has taken ecstasy or MDMA occasionally since her 20s.

She has taken aim at the NSW Government’s zero tolerance approach to illicit drug use.

The Greens MP, 48, says policing and sniffer dogs weren’t stopping people from bringing drugs into festivals but led to people taking more than one MDMA pill or cap at once before entering the festival.

Mr Shorten today insisted he did not support people taking illegal drugs, saying he was “no where near as relaxed about these matters as more evidence comes”.

He said he had recently been consulting stakeholders about pill testing, describing it as a vexed issue.

“The fact of the matter is that it’s very difficult to give a tick to someone breaking the law,” he said.

“These are illicit drugs. People may think they are going to have fun, but they are actually very dangerous.”

Five people have died after taking drugs at music festivals in NSW alone since September, including Brisbane man Joshua Tam.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, which represents more than 17,000 physicians and paediatricians, has sent an open letter to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her counterparts urging them to follow the lead of the ACT.

“The RACP’s experts in addiction medicine and public health medicine believe the evidence currently available justifies the introduction of carefully designed pill testing trials in Australia,” Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones said on Friday.

“Ideally, we would all like young people and the wider public not to use drugs illicitly, however, the reality is that they do in large numbers and the moral message to abstain from taking drugs is not getting through.”

They now join the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, who are also urging governments to adopt pill testing.