Pill testing: Adelaide mother of Stereosonic music festival ecstasy overdose victim Stefan Woodward condemns practice

Stefan Woodward died four years ago from pure MDMA at a musical festival. His mother Julie has opened up on why she believes pill testing isn’t the answer in this debate on saving lives.

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Pill testing is wrong and sends a dangerous signal to young users that drugs are safe, warns the grieving mother of an Adelaide teenage overdose victim.

In a highly personal public statement, Julie Davis, 43, told The Advertiser how testing would not have saved her son, Stefan Woodward, 19, who died after taking an ecstasy pill at the Stereosonic dance music festival almost four years ago.

Julie Davis, the mother of Stefan Woodward, who died from a drug overdose at the Stereosonic music festival in December 2015. Picture: Brad Fleet

Breaking her silence on the toxic debate, she condemned testing as encouraging young people to take dangerous ecstasy or MDMA in the misguided belief it was safe.

In fact, she said, it was more likely to kill them, like it did her son, whose autopsy revealed he died after consuming “pure” MDMA on a searing summer day in December 2015.

The western suburbs mother-of-three has bravely spoken out about her ongoing grief and anger at the practice.

Police forces across the country, including South Australian Police, do not support pill testing.

But advocates say it does in fact save lives, because users are shown what is in their drugs while being warned about the risks of taking it.

Ms Davis has spoken publicly for News Corp Australia’s Ripple Effect series, a confronting, raw and emotional look at how illicit drugs are devastating Australian families.

The mother of Stefan Woodward, Julie Davis, pictured with husband Jonathan. Picture: Brad Fleet

“What gets me really angry the last couple of years is this testing tent stuff,” said Ms Davis, an aged care worker of Largs North, who said that initial fears were her son taking a pill from a “bad batch”.

“I just think they (young users) are invincible – ‘I am all right I am only going to take a couple or whatever it is’.

“His (Stefan’s) autopsy report and death certificate … says it wasn’t spiked or laced with anything. It was just the MDMA. And those letters just kill me when I hear it. Every year on the news. It was just ecstasy. He died just from that.

Stefan Woodward. Picture supplied by family.

“It didn’t have rat poison in it. Fentanyl in it. It didn’t have heroin in it. Didn’t have speed in it. It had nothing in it. But that. And that is what he reacted to.”

She said the autopsy report spoke about the hot weather the day he died. Doctors told her how MDMA heats up bodies, and raises its temperatures.

She added: “They are not saying the hot day caused his death. They are saying it was MDMA. But it didn’t help it was 40+-plus degrees. He pretty much melted.”

Asked if she was “vehemently against” pill testing, she replied: “Yes. I don’t like it. I don’t think it is the answer.

“Because what if they say it is all right. It is just MDMA and they die still? Then what? Can that mum sue them (if) something happened? What is going to happen to people in the tent that said it was OK? Do they document and log it all down? That they said yes to that person? Or do they get away with it?

“Stefan had pure MDMA. That’s what gets me so upset. Can’t they (young people) just not … (take the drugs) and just listen to music.”

“Stefan’s autopsy report and death certificate … says it wasn’t spiked or laced with anything. It was just the MDMA. And those letters just kill me when I hear it. Every year on the news.” Picture: Brad Fleet

“Conducting pill testing at music festivals does not provided sufficient safety to people who are taking illicit substances,” said SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens.

“These are illegal drugs produced by criminals in backyard laboratories and the pill testing process is not conclusive.

“Nor do we know the physiological condition of a person taking that tablet and we know even pure MDMA can result in a deadly overdose, so it’s not simply just about confirming MDMA or some other substance.

“My role is to put systems in place that reduce the demand and make it harder for people to get the drugs.”

Pill testing has triggered heated debate across the country as campaigners, and the New South Wales deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame called for the practice to be widely introduced.

Ms Grahame ended her inquest into festival deaths this year by suggesting drug dogs were linked to a more harmful means of MDMA consumption like “panic ingesting” and “double dosing”.

The ACT government introduced it at a music festival earlier this year, arguing it saved seven lives.

But Harm Reduction Australia president, Gino Vumbaca, defended a practice that his organisation is helping spearhead at music festivals.

His organisation states that it provides an opportunity for users to be “informed and consider a range of issues” before potentially taking an illicit substance.

It educates users, stops them using ambulances, or hospitals, allows for better health warnings and helps young people navigate risk taking, especially in the 16-25 age bracket, he said.

Mr Vumbaca, a Sydney-based social worker, says neither he, nor any of his colleagues – some of whom have more than 30 years’ medical experience – would advocate a practice that put anyone at risk.

In fact, he said, their first words in any testing tent were to urge users not to take drugs.

“We want to help kids by getting through to them the risks and any potential harm,” he said.

“Part of our job is to change the behaviour of people using drugs. You can’t stop them going to festivals.

“If we thought this was doing harm in any way, and wasn’t helping, we wouldn’t do it.”

He also had immense sympathy to grieving families, such as Ms Davis, as he is unsure whether pill testing would have saved their loved ones’ lives due to a range of unknown factors.

Originally published as Pill testing: Adelaide mother of Stereosonic music festival ecstasy overdose victim Stefan Woodward condemns practice