Pill-testing plan to stop ‘horror’ of teenagers overdosing: Premier

Premier Jacinta Allan says a proposed year-long pill-testing trial in Victoria would help avoid the “unimaginable” horror of parents losing their children to overdoses at music festivals.

The trial would probably include mobile teams attending music festivals to test illicit drugs for potency and contaminants. Patrons would be provided advice on safer drug use at the site.

Premier Jacinta Allan speaking to reporters in May.Credit: Joe Armao

The Age revealed on Sunday that the Department of Health had been working on how a Victorian pill-testing trial could operate, after Allan softened her government’s opposition to pill testing over the summer amid a spate of music festival overdoses.

The bid for a drug-checking service will be taken to cabinet with the premier’s support on Monday.

Speaking in Cheltenham on Sunday, Allan wouldn’t be drawn on whether her ministerial colleagues would back the proposal but said it was important to hear the “evidence and advice”.

She said the spate of deaths and hospitalisations over the summer had prompted her to address the issue.

In January, nine people were taken to hospital after overdosing at 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.

“That is a horror to imagine as a parent – the horror of your son or daughter, going off with friends to have a good time to go to a festival and then to not come home … just unimaginable,” Allan said.

“Particularly, what we saw after the recent spike over the summer this year, the spike in the number of overdoses and particularly with some of the types of drugs that were circulating around festivals.

“That’s why as both a parent and premier, my focus is always on looking at ways that we can support young people to be safe and to protect young people, and that is why we’ve got some advice coming from the Department of Health.”

Privately, some Labor ministers have expressed concern about pill testing, fearing it will leave the government liable in situations where partygoers had their pills tested but still suffered ill effects.

Other ministers, primarily from the party’s right, are also expected to raise concerns about whether the public will be open to a conversation about pill testing given other pressing concerns such as housing and cost-of-living issues, which they claim should be the government’s primary focus.

The ACT trialled a mobile testing site at a music festival in 2018 and has since opened fixed pill-testing sites. Queensland opened its first permanent pill-testing centre in Brisbane in April.

Dr David Caldicott, an emergency department consultant and clinical lead with Pill Testing Australia, said festival-goers often changed their behaviour once they had their drugs tested.

Dr David Caldicott says there is a certain degree of bravery in Queensland’s decision.Credit: Christopher Pearce

“If a young person is told by a doctor – who they know knows a lot about drugs – that they could come to a lot of harm from using that drug, people often choose the option of having a great time while abandoning the drug they’ve been warned not to take,” he said.

“We might not be able to get everybody to surrender their entire collection of [drugs]. But what we can do is persuade people to behave in a way that makes them far less likely to need to come in contact with healthcare services.”

Caldicott said the Victorian drug-checking proposal was timely because nitazenes – a new group of dangerous synthetic opioids more potent than fentanyl – had been found in pills tested in the ACT this year. “There’s always another drug coming through, that’s part of the problem,” he said.

“The more centres that are monitoring illicit drugs in this way, the earlier the warning that we will get for something particularly unpleasant as it emerges, and the faster we can get the messaging out to ensure that young people won’t get harmed.”

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

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On Sunday, the Coalition reiterated its opposition to pill testing. “We know there have been trials around the world … but I don’t support pill testing here in Victoria,” opposition police spokesman Brad Battin said.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman told The Age that “any decision around allowing pill testing is a matter for government”. The Police Association did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

The Victorian Greens drug-harm reduction spokesperson, Aiv Puglielli, said the uptake of pill testing was long overdue and the longer it was delayed, the “more young lives are at risk”.

He said the premier needed to “convince her cabinet to get on with pill testing as a matter of urgency if she’s serious about protecting young lives”.

Earlier this year, Greens Legislative Council member for Northern Metropolitan Region, Samantha Ratnam, asked the Parliamentary Budget Office to calculate the cost of a two-year pill-testing trial, including a fixed testing facility and mobile testing that would rove between festivals. The office found the trial would cost about $3.7 million.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Victorian Ambulance Union are among more than 70 groups who have campaigned in the past year for Victoria to begin pill testing, according to AAP.

Royal Australian College of GPs president Dr Nicole Higgins said on social media on Sunday the move towards pill testing in Victoria was “promising”.

“I once again urge the Victorian government to follow the lead of the ACT and Queensland and introduce drug testing. It saves lives,” she said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

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.

With Rachael Dexter

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