NSW Police slammed for seizing drug testing kits which are perfectly legal to possess

NSW Police is accused of “losing touch with basic moral principles” for confiscating legal equipment that could save people’s lives.

NSW Police has been labelled as “ludicrous” and having “lost touch with basic moral principles” for seizing legal equipment that campaigners say could save people’s lives.

An advocate for drug law reform has told news.com.au that NSW Police appears to be undertaking a “PR campaign” that will lead to young people harming themselves as a strategy to deter others from taking illegal drugs.

On Monday, NSW Police announced they had raided a shop in the Sydney inner west suburb of Newtown where more than $34,000 of “drug equipment” was seized.

It included “536 cannabis pipes, 195 ice pipes and 74 cocaine spoons,” as well as “numerous other pieces of equipment allegedly used to administer prohibited drugs”, police stated.

However, the police also said they had seized “seven ecstasy testing kits” despite the fact these are not illegal under NSW law.

The confiscation comes as advocates for drug law reform have increased pressure on the NSW Government to allow drug testing of ecstasy pills at summer music festivals.

A ‘Check it’ drug testing tent at an Austrian music festival.

Last summer, seven people died in Australia at festivals.

Will Tregoning, executive director of Unharm — an organisation that campaigns for safe drug use — lashed out at the police.

“It’s ludicrous for police to be boasting about confiscating these kits,” he told news.com.au

“This is dangerous, and police should reconsider.

“We’re in this crazy situation where police and politicians are doing everything in their power to prevent people from identifying and discarding the most dangerous substances before they take them. They are promoting harm in order to deter drug use.

“Aside from the fact that this strategy doesn’t work, it shows they have lost touch with basic moral principles.”

NSW Police uploaded images onto their Facebook page of the haul. However, by Wednesday the post has been taken down.

NSW Police has not answered news.com.au’s questions as to why they confiscated the kits or the reason why the original post was taken down.

Mr Tregoning who has set up the Tests, Not Arrests initiative to lobby for testing at festivals, said the seizure seemed to be as much about public relations than prevention. He said he understood police intended to “disrupt” any attempt to distribute pill testing kits at festivals.

“This operation was made for media and social media. It’s about police being seen to be ‘tough’ on drugs,” he said.

Police sniffer dogs check the incoming crowd for drugs at this year’s Stereosonic festival in Brisbane’s Showgrounds.

“For NSW Police in particular the PR is becoming more and more sophisticated, and more the point.”

Across Australia, no state bans drug testing kits. In NSW there is no legislation regarding the manufacture, sale or possession of the kits.

In November 2015, chemist Sylvia Choi, 25, died after taking ecstasy at the Stereosonic festival in Sydney. A week later Stefan Woodward, 19, died at the same festival’s Adelaide leg, also from an overdose.

The deaths have prompted calls for the kits at festivals so users can have more information about the potential risks they might be taking.

Last month, campaigners under the “Just One Life” banner said they would flood festivals with DIY drug testing kits with or without the support of police.

“We are heading into festival season, we witnessed a number of deaths last year,” Harm Reduction Australia president Gino Vumbaca told Fairfax.

“When it came to discussing the available options with government, we couldn’t even get a foot in the door. We have since decided we cannot sit back idly and do nothing.”

Adriana Buccianti, whose son Daniel died in 2012 at a Victorian music festival after taking a tab of acid, has backed calls for pill testing stations.

“If pill testing was implemented people might not take their drugs because no one wants to come out of a festival or nightclub in a body bag if they think their drugs might kill them,” she told news.com.au last month.

More than 38,000 people have signed a Change.org petition set up by Ms Buccianti calling for the service to test for contaminated stashes cut with unknown and potentially lethal substances.

Mr Tregoning said simply telling people to not take drugs wasn’t working. “Asking police to enforce prohibition is like asking them to sail a ship to the moon.

“As the evidence of that impossibility piles up, they are resorting more and more to mere symbolism and sending a message.”

Seven people died last summer at music festivals.

The kits the police confiscated are cruder than the ones many advocates would like to see at festivals.

The eventual aim would be to set up hi tech and visible testing stations which can check the quality of a wider range of drugs. But this would require police to turn a blind eye to people openly revealing their stash.

State governments have been reluctant to embrace drug testing.

The ACT Government said in August drug checks were “not a government endorsed approach”.

While NSW Police Minister Troy Grant told the ABC in February that pill tests might reveal what’s in a drug but it wouldn’t tell users if they would die as a result.

“What (pill testing advocates are) proposing is a government regimen that asks for taxpayers’ money to support a drug dealer’s business enterprise — that’s not going to happen in NSW while I’m the minister.”

Nevertheless, some senior police figures, including former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer have said the they have “no problem” with testing if it reduced the danger to young people.