Politicians opposed to pill testing should spend a night out in Sydney

Young people take drugs. In fact, let's not even make it about age. People take drugs. I can’t walk into a bathroom at a nightclub these days without seeing a line for the cubicles that extends past two empty urinals. I’ve seen dilated pupils, swinging jaws, keys whipped out and shoved up noses on the corners of dance floors. I have been to music festivals where I’ve seen more tiny little plastic zip-lock bags scattered on the ground than I could possibly count.

Whether you think it is right or wrong, this is the reality. So it dumbfounds me that politicians seem bent on the simple “just say no” approach, which has quite evidently failed to make a dent in the phenomenon. Gladys Berejiklian's continual refusal to implement pill testing in favour of increased police presence is an attempt to draw a line in the sand, but it’s really a head-in-the-sand moment.

The issue is not that people are taking drugs. The issue is that young people are dying at music festivals. By confusing the two the NSW government sets it’s eyes on an unachievable utopia while ignoring the difference it can make in the real world.

Current measures at festivals merely pit the individual against the establishment. Festival gates look more like land crossings into police states. The line to get in has become a place of such anxiety that it has claimed lives. It’s “us against them” when you see police sniffer dogs walking through the line. Young people are swallowing all their drugs in one go because they fear being caught. Alex Ross-King, a 19-year-old who died this year at the FOMO festival in Parramatta, is a tragic case in point.

I’ve seen a near overdose. I walked into the bathroom at a gig and saw a pale lifeless man lying still on the floor. He didn’t move for 30 seconds and someone ran to get help. All of a sudden his face was filled with colour again and he stood. Whatever he had just taken had nearly taken him. It’s terrifying. It’s confronting, but that’s the reality, so we can’t just close our eyes and think it’ll go away.

The deputy state coroner has reviewed a string of festival deaths and, according to leaked recommendations, will advocate pill testing. The government’s fear seems to be that by giving the go ahead for pill testing, it will give the green light to young people to use drugs. But there isn’t a group of people out there waiting for pill testing to go ahead to take drugs; they’re already doing it. Once the pill-testing tents are set up at festivals, the ones who don’t want to take drugs won’t empty their wallets and become full-time users. Instead, those who take drugs anyway will have the opportunity to know what they are taking. They won't be told their drugs are safe - in fact they will be told that there is no safe level of drug taking. But they will be told that poly-drug use increases the risk of a bad outcome. They will be told if the pill they have has particularly high levels of the drug they think they are taking. So they might not take so much of it. And they might be told it contains a completely different substance. And not take it at all. Ultimately, they are given the opportunity to make a more informed choice.

Pill testing works. At the Groovin the Moo festival this year 171 pills were tested and seven tested positive for n-ethylpentylone, a poisonous substance that could have been fatal if ingested. Unsurprisingly, they were discarded by the owners because no one wants to take contaminated drugs. No one wants to die.

What we have are politicians who are out of touch with the lives of those they are supposed to represent and think that if no one wants to die, then no one should ever take drugs. But it's just not that simple. A few nights out on the town in Sydney might convince them of that.

People are dying at festivals. There is no solution that will stop people from taking drugs. That aim is dangerously ignorant. By providing pill testing, the government can at least minimise the harm, which is what it owes to its people.

Brandon Jack is a Sydney writer.