Victorian pill testing trial to go to cabinet ‘within weeks’ with premier’s support

A year-long pill testing trial could be announced in Victoria within weeks, as the proposal will be taken to cabinet with Premier Jacinta Allan’s support.

The trial would likely include mobile teams attending music festivals to test illicit drugs for potency and contaminants, and to provide patrons with advice on safer drug use.

Nine people were hospitalised after overdosing on drugs at Hardmission Festival in January.

“The premier considers it a commonsense health and safety reform that protects young people,” a source within government told The Sunday Age, speaking anonymously as state cabinet is yet to sign off on the plan.

The Department of Health had been working on what a pill testing trial would look like, the source said, after Allan softened her government’s opposition to pill testing over last summer amid a spate of overdoses at music festivals.

In January, nine people were hospitalised after attending Hardmission Festival, and eight of them required intubation after ingesting MDMA. Six days later, two women were taken to hospital after suspected drug use at Juicy Fest.

Seven Victorian coronial inquests have previously called on the state to introduce pill testing.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has softened her view towards a pill testing trial.Credit: Joe Armao

An official announcement of a trial could be “within weeks”, the government source said.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Victorian Ambulance Union are among more than 70 groups that have campaigned over the past year for the government to start pill testing.

Drug and alcohol service Turning Point confirmed it had provided the Department of Health with a number of literature reviews of trials done overseas and in Australia, which laid out the evidence for pill testing as a mechanism to avoid deaths.

“Drug checking can prevent deaths related to contaminants and also can support an early warning system [for the public] that these substances are in the [drug] supply,” said Associate Professor Shalini Arunogir, Turning Point’s acting executive clinical director.

The Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association last month released a strategy document presenting the government with what it believed to be an “optimal” model for pill testing, which includes both permanent drug testing facilities in central Melbourne and mobile units which could travel to music festivals or regional communities.

The association estimates it would cost just over $2 million a year to run the service.

The Age has previously reported that Allan was supportive of pill testing before her first summer as premier, though there were lingering hesitations from some Labor MPs.

Allan’s predecessor, Daniel Andrews, was against any moves on pill testing and said in early 2023: “I don’t think you can take these drugs at any level and be safe.”

The ACT and Queensland have opened permanent pill testing sites.Credit: Christopher Pearce

Opposition Leader John Pesutto and the Police Association of Victoria have previously opposed pill testing and argue it would legitimise illicit drug taking.

“What we should be teaching people and what we should be reinforcing is that you can’t legislate or policy your way out of personal responsibility,” association secretary Wayne Gatt said earlier this year.

In January, The Age revealed Victorian taxpayers spend up to $3.9 million a year on MDMA-related overdoses in costs that cover ambulances, emergency departments, hospital admissions and coronial inquiries, which led advocates to argue there is a financial case for pill testing.

Two drug and alcohol counselling industry sources said the health sector had become increasingly positive the government was developing a drug checking policy following the decision in April to reject a second safe injecting room in the CBD.

A testing policy was likely to coincide with the release of the government’s alcohol and drugs strategy, due by the end of the year, one of the counselling industry sources said.

Queensland opened its first permanent pill testing centre in April, while the ACT first trialled a mobile testing site at a festival in 2018. It has since opened fixed pill testing sites.

NSW is running a drug checking trial at its Kings Cross medically supervised injecting centre, but the Minns government has resisted calls for mobile testing units to be deployed to music festivals.

A study released this year found that 64 drug-related deaths at music festivals across the country over 20 years – including 17 deaths in Victoria – could have potentially been prevented.

Recent results from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey, released in March, showed that support for drug checking (also known as pill testing) in Australia rose from 57 in 2019 to 64 per cent in 2022-23.

with Kieran Rooney

If this story has raised issues about your own or others’ drug and alcohol use, please contact The National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015.

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