Coroner calls for festival pill tests

The deputy state coroner has backed the desperate pleas of parents whose children have died of drug overdoses to introduce pill testing at music festivals, but Premier Gladys Berejiklian has indicated she will not back down from her opposition to it.

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THE deputy state coroner has backed the desperate pleas of parents whose children have died of drug overdoses to introduce pill testing at music festivals, but Premier Gladys Berejiklian has indicated she will not back down from her opposition to it.

Deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame yesterday implored the state government look with “fresh eyes” at pill testing, in a major report following an inquest into the deaths of six young people at NSW music festivals.

19-year-old Alex Ross-King, who died of a suspected drug overdose at the FOMO music festival 2018. Picture: Facebook

Callum Brosnan Knockout Games of Destiny Dancy Party victim.

The report contained a raft of recommendations, including introducing pill-testing at music festivals, starting this summer, scrapping the use of sniffer dogs because they can “precipitate panic ingestion or dangerous pre-loading”, and a drug summit to consider decriminalising the personal use of illicit drugs.

Ms Berejiklian, who went to the election strongly opposed to pill testing because of concerns it gives revellers a false sense of security, had not seen the report when asked about it yesterday, but said the government’s position on pill testing was “pretty clear”.

Joshua Tam, who died after Lost Paradise festival 2018.

Nathan Tran, who died at a Sydney music festival.

“But if there are ways which we can reduce harm to young people, of course we’ll consider those,” she added.

Ms Grahame said there was “compelling” evidence to support a drug checking trial at music festivals and in the community.

“Of course drug checking is not a magic solution to these tragic deaths … (it) is simply an evidence-based harm reduction strategy that should be trialled as soon as possible in NSW,” she said.

Diana Nguyen, who died at defqon festival 2018.

Defqon victim Joseph Pham 2016

Ms Grahame also said she was of the “firm view” that high-visibility policing and the use of drug detection dogs was “harmful”.

And she called for new police guidelines to be issued limiting strip searches at music festivals to people suspected of supplying illicit drugs rather than those possessing them for personal use.

(L-R) Matthew King, the father of Alex King, 19, embraces Cornelius Brosnan, the father of Callum Brosnan, 21, outside the Coroner's Court. Picture:Peter Rae

“The wholesale practice of strip searching young people for the possible offence of possession is of grave concern,” Ms Grahame said.

The NSW Coroners Court heard from ­experts, medical staff and police about the deaths of Alex Ross-King, 19, Joshua Tam, 22, Callum Brosnan, 19, Diana Nguyen, 21, Joseph Pham, 23, and Nathan Tran, 18, at various festivals from December 2017 to January 2019.

Jen Ross-King, whose daughter Alex died after ingesting almost three MDMA capsules before entering the FOMO festival in January, begged Ms Berejiklian to “please listen to the evidence” and back pill testing. “Someone else’s child is not going to come home and I don’t want that for anybody,” Mrs Ross-King (left) said.

Opposition Leader Jodi McKay yesterday said she would be open to a “medically-supervised” pill testing trial.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said in a statement that the deaths were “tragic”, but police were not to blame.

Originally published as Coroner calls for festival pill tests