What’s in that white powder? Inside Victoria’s first pill testing site
Inside a demountable in the middle of a dusty paddock in western Victoria, senior chemist Jacob Fry carefully places a small sample of white powder on a silver disk atop a printer-like machine. The sample is barely the size of a match head, but that’s enough to detect whether someone is in for a bad night out.
In less than a minute, a result flashes on a computer screen in the form of a pointy line graphic. Much to the relief of acting Mental Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas, who is sitting next to Fry inside the portable lab, the result comes back positive for the popular over-the-counter painkiller paracetamol.
Acting Mental Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas (centre) watches a sample drug testing with chemist Jacob Fry and Sarah Hiley, the drug-checking director at the organisation that will run the testing site at the Beyond the Valley festival. Credit: Simon Schluter
“Excellent,” Thomas says.
The printer-like device is a Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy machine, an instrument used by chemists to identify the chemical makeup of a sample by looking at the way its components react to infrared light.
Today, Fry is running a test to show Thomas and a small crowd of journalists how the device works, but from Saturday, a team of up to nine chemists will be using the machine to check the composition of the recreational drugs of punters at the Beyond the Valley festival in Hesse.
The multi-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 set up pop-up sites at 10 festivals over the next two summers to determine the best model to introduce the drug reform.
Beyond the Valley is the first festival in Victoria to have a mobile drug-checking site under an 18-month government trial.Credit: Wire Image
The trial will also feature a fixed site within a party district in Melbourne, which will open mid-next year. The government has not announced the location of the fixed site or which other festivals will form part of the trial.
The mobile site at Beyond the Valley will be staffed by 16 chemists, health and support workers and will be able to test up to 200 drug samples per day, more than any other pill-testing service in Australia. And unlike today, Fry expects the party drug MDMA to be the most common match.
Festival-goers will be able to drop by a testing tent between 1pm and 7pm each day. There, they will be asked some questions about their drugs, including whether they’ve tried this specific batch before and whether they’ve bought it at the festival or elsewhere. All the information will be kept confidential, and party-goers will not be required to provide their names.
Staff will then take a small sample of the drug (about 10 milligrams, or a tenth of a standard dose), which will be put in a vial and sent for testing. When the results from the lab come back, the drug’s owners will be called into a meeting room inside the tent, where staff will discuss the composition of the sample and explain potential risks.
Chemists will only need a sample the size of a match head to be able to test the drugs.Credit: Simon Schluter
“They will be told that their safety can never be guaranteed if they are taking illegal drugs, but they’ll know this is an environment where they can have a trusted, confidential conversation and where important information can be given about harm reduction,” Thomas said.
“Past experience tells us that having those conversations … will lead many young people to discard the drugs that they’ve brought with them, to make different choices that will make them safer.”
The testing will also allow authorities to detect whether a high-risk substance, such as potent narcotics like nitazenes, has been mixed in with other drugs and issue health warnings accordingly.
Sarah Hiley, a drug-checking director at The Loop Australia, the organisation running the drug-testing site at Beyond the Valley, said experience from other jurisdictions such as Queensland showed many young people would likely have their first conversation about drugs outside their social circles at a site such as this.
Police will still patrol the festival and test drivers for alcohol and drugs. However, they will not visit the mobile pill-testing site.
“Police will continue to enforce against drug offences away from the drug-checking place and seize any illicit substances. As always, police may use discretion to not enforce possession offences,” a Victoria Police said in a statement.
Under new legislation introduced by the Allan government as part of its pill testing bill this year, it is no longer a criminal offence to possess a small amount of illicit drugs while attending a drug-checking site.
Former premier Daniel Andrews was against introducing pill testing, but his successor, Jacinta Allan, softened her approach on the issue within months of taking office, amid mounting pressure on the government to act following a string of overdoses at music festivals last summer.
These included nine people needing to be treated in hospital last January after attending Hardmission Festival, eight of whom had to be intubated after ingesting MDMA. Six days later, two women were taken to hospital after suspected drug use at Juicy Fest. Heat was also found to have played a role.
Libertarian MP David Limbrick, who also visited the site on Friday, said he was supportive of pill testing but questioned whether it should remain taxpayer-funded after the 18-month trial ends. The trial is estimated to cost $4 million.
“I think there are lots of Victorians that would rightly question why taxpayer money is being used to subsidise quality control for drugs,” Limbrick said.
“Festivals are not cheap. It’s very expensive to get those tickets. It’s very expensive to buy the drugs. And I think that people would say, well, these people have got money. Why are taxpayers paying for that service?”
With Rachel Eddie