ACT Greens minister Shane Rattenbury to ‘ramp up’ push for radical new pill testing laws
The Greens have said ‘conversations will ramp up’ over controversial plans involving pill testing in Canberra, with one senior politician sounding out three possible sites for permanent testing.
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Canberra’s Labor-Greens government will begin discussing radical new drug laws within weeks, including potentially setting up permanent pill testing at a university campus.
The opposition says the plans would turn Canberra into “the pill popping capital of Australia” and would harm young people.
Greens Justice Minister Shane Rattenbury told ABC radio “conversations will ramp up” in coming weeks after Australian National University researchers release the findings of an independent study into pill testing trials at music festivals.
Mr Rattenbury told the radio station he would push for permanent pill testing site near the city.
“You could think about partnering with one of the universities and setting up on a campus, where you could even engage the chemistry students and like, so you’d create a professional development opportunity,” he said.
He said a charity group or a pharmacy could also run a permanent pill testing site, and he hoped police — who he is yet to speak with about the plan — would not target users.
“What you don’t want is people to be going and using a pill testing facility and essentially it being used as a set up for police to swoop in and arrest them,” he said.
Mr Rattenbury’s comments come amid a bureaucratic standoff over pill testing, with testing trials having been allowed at festivals on ACT government-controlled land, but blocked at festivals on land controlled by the National Capital Authority.
Shadow Attorney-General Jeremy Hanson said: “Rolling out pill testing across Canberra would make the ACT the pill popping capital of Australia.
“These sorts of policies along with the refusal to introduce tough anti-bikie laws are giving a green light to drug dealers and are doing great harm to our kids.”
New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said last week he was “gravely concerned about the message that pill testing sends to young people about the consumption of illegal substances”.
Mr Fuller’s comments came after NSW deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame controversially recommended the state government allow pill testing at music festivals and decriminalise the possession of small amounts of drugs.