Greens reintroduce Bill to set up a two-year safe drug testing trial in Victoria

As the Victorian music festival season gears up, the Andrews government is under pressure to establish a safe drug testing trial to potentially save lives.

New legislation will be introduced into Victorian parliament urging the Andrews government to establish a two-year drug testing trial in a bid to save people from taking potentially lethal drugs.

As thousands of young Victorians prepare to descend on music festivals including Beyond the Valley and Falls Festival over the New Year’s period, the new look Greens outfit have renewed calls for the government to take action.

Young patrons of the recent Ballarat Spilt Milk and Meredith music festivals said ketamine was now the drug of choice, with event toilets commonly used to snort it in powder form.

“Nobody really does coke anymore at festivals, it’s too expensive, it’s ketamine and (MDMA) caps that are popular,” one frequent festival-goer in his early 20s said.

“If there was testing at festivals, to make sure the drugs were safe and not contaminated, and there was no risk of being questioned about them or getting into trouble for having them, I think of lot of young people would probably use the service,” he said.

One former party drug user said: “It’s a farce that (Premier) Daniel Andrews hasn’t already legalised pill testing when he calls himself the most progressive state government in the country.”

According to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, Ketamine - which is used by medical practitioners and veterinarians as an anaesthetic - is a dissociative drug, which means it acts on different chemicals in the brain to produce visual and auditory distortion, and a detachment from reality.

When it’s sold illegally, ketamine usually comes as a white or off-white powder. It can also be made into pills, or dissolved in a liquid.

It can be referred to as Special K, K, ket, kitkat, super k or horse trank.

Currently, Canberra is the only jurisdiction that tests drugs, allowing users to have their pills, capsules, powders, crystals and liquids tested.

While the Andrews government was re-elected with an overwhelming majority in the lower house, it will need to negotiate with a pro-drug reform crossbench to pass legislation in the upper house.

Festival goers are preparing to head to Beyond The Valley. Picture: Facebook

Drug reform, including legalising cannabis and trialling pill testing, will be two key items on the agenda for progressive parties like the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice Party.

Victorian Greens health spokesman Tim Read, who is a medical doctor, said current drug laws are endangering partygoers.

“Everyone should be able to enjoy music festivals safely but Victoria’s out-of-date and punitive drug laws are putting those who enjoy festivals at risk,” Dr Read told the Herald Sun.

The Greens will reintroduce a Bill to set up a two-year pill testing trial in Victoria. It would establish both a mobile pill testing facility for festivals and a fixed-site laboratory to provide a more detailed analysis.

Both sites would be licensed for two years with the potential for a four-year extension following a review.

The move has been welcomed by Adriana Buccianti, whose son Daniel died of a drug overdose at Rainbow Serpent in 2012.

Ms Buccianti said having pill testing available 10 years ago may have saved her son’s life.

“People have the right to know what’s in this stuff and how to look after themselves,” she said.

“I absolutely wish Daniel had the opportunity to have what he took tested.

“Not only did he leave a hole in our heart, but also my grandchildren – my daughter’s children – will never have cousins. We don’t know what Daniel would have done, or where he would have risen to.”

Adriana Buccianti with a picture of her son Daniel who died of a drug overdose at Rainbow Serpent in 2012. Picture: Josie Hayden

Ms Buccianti urged every future festival goer to think about what they could be taking.

“If anything, don’t take anything at all because you have no guarantee that it’s not going to kill you,” she pleaded.

“Unless you know, and unless you can be given some guarantee, don’t play Russian roulette with your life.”

Costings from the independent Parliamentary Budget Office predicted the trial would cost taxpayers $3.8 million – including $1.3 million to cover operational, staffing and testing costs each year.

Greens leader Samantha Ratnam – who is now joined by three additional Greens MPs in the Legislative Council – said the culture of drug use in Australia needed to be urgently changed.

“The Greens are looking forward to working constructively with the government and the progressive crossbench to pass much-needed drug law reform,” she said.

Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell said she’d back the Greens and support the push for drug testing.

“We know that pill testing saves lives, and can be the difference between a young person making it home from a festival or party alive or not,” she said.

“It doesn’t encourage more people to use drugs. It simply makes it safer for those who do.”

Greens leader Samantha Ratnam says the culture of drug use in Australia needs to change. Picture: Martin Ollman

Ms Ratnam said the first step in doing that was to treat drug use as a health issue rather than a criminal one.

“We know that most people choose to throw out their drugs when informed that they contain harmful substances,” she said.

Penington Institute chief executive John Ryan said multiple coronial inquests into drug-induced deaths had proven that drug checking services are a “valuable tool” in reducing harm.

“Making more of them publicly accessible is likely to save young lives,” he said.

“There is no evidence drug checking increases drug use. In fact, people often discard drugs or reduce their consumption after drug checking.”

Mr Ryan said Australia’s first fixed-site pill testing service in Canberra, CanTEST, examined 139 drug samples in one month, which resulted in 13 samples being voluntarily discarded.

“That’s 13 instances of possible overdose avoided thanks to this service,” he said.

Caribou performing at Meredith Music Festival. Picture: Katie Hall

Mr Ryan said currently there is around 1000 novel psychoactive substances circulating on the global market.

“These are often sold as one of a handful of drugs that people know of and seek out, like cocaine, ketamine or MDMA,” he said.

‘It’s a farce that Daniel Andrews hasn’t already legalised pill testing,’ one former drug user says.

“Rather than focusing on one or two problem substances, we urgently need better approaches to educating the community on drug use in general.

“Best case scenario is people don’t use drugs, but the worst case scenario is what we have now, which is leaving people in the dark and at the mercy of the criminal drug traffickers.”

An Andrews government spokesman said: “There are no current plans to trial pill testing.”

He said the government took a health led approach to alcohol and drug use and invested $313m in the recent budget to ensure Victorians could access information and advice, treatment and harm reduction services.

During the last term of parliament, the Greens tried to amend the state’s public health laws to force Victorian police to alert health officials to toxic batches of drugs, which would then prompt the health department to issue public alerts.

While the department has been issuing drug alerts since 2020, this information isn’t coming from Victoria Police, rather public hospitals and the Victorian Poisons Centre, which means drug alerts are issued depending on which agency discovers the drug, rather than the public health risk of the drug.

If you or someone you know is experiencing issues arising from their use of alcohol or drugs, call DirectLine on 1800 888 236 at any time.

In an emergency, call triple-0.