Festival-goer overdoses on first day of Victorian pill-testing trial
A young festival-goer has been hospitalised after a drug overdose at a festival where pill testing is being trialled for the first time in Victoria.
Paramedics were called to Beyond the Valley festival in Hesse, 45 kilometres west of Geelong, on Saturday about 4.40pm to attend to a man in his 20s.
The Beyond the Valley music festival.Credit: Chris Hopkins
An Ambulance Victoria spokesman said the man was taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition.
The man was discharged on Sunday morning. A spokesman for Geelong University Hospital confirmed he had suffered a drug overdose.
Organisers of the testing facility at the festival said it was not possible to determine if the man had used their service, because it was an entirely anonymous process.
The testing allows authorities to detect whether high-risk substances, such as potent narcotics like nitazenes, have been mixed in with other drugs, allowing appropriate health warnings to be issued.
As of Sunday afternoon, two days into the four-day festival, no such high-risk substances had been identified in the roughly 300 samples tested, according to the organisation running the facility, The Loop Australia.
The service can also show whether the substance is what the user believes it is or another drug entirely, as well as measuring its purity. Guidance and warnings around dosages based on that information is then offered to the festival goers.
Cam Francis, CEO of The Loop Australia, said while he was not aware of the details of the overdose case on Saturday, MDMA was often behind medical episodes at festivals as its high purity made it easy to overdose on.
“At a festival of this scale, those types of hospital transports are not uncommon,” he said.
“We know that MDMA purity is high all around the world right now, so we know that that’s a risk factor for all music festivals and that’s what we’re here to try and address.”
The five-day music festival is the first in Victoria to have a mobile drug-checking service as part of an 18-month state government trial that will have pop-up sites at 10 festivals over the next two summers to determine the best model to introduce the drug reform.
The mobile site at Beyond the Valley is being staffed by 16 chemists, health and support workers and is testing up to 200 drug samples a day, more than any other pill-testing service in Australia.
Festival-goers can drop by the testing tent between 1pm and 7pm each day. At the service, they are asked questions about their drugs, including whether they have tried this specific batch before and whether they have bought it at the festival or elsewhere.
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