Talking Point: Testing festival drugs can stop people dying

GREG BARNS: The Police Minister is failing in his duty to protect Tasmanians from harm.

POLICE Minister Rene Hidding did himself and the Tasmanian community no good at all last week with his arrogant, dangerous dismissal of a sensible idea by the Greens for pill testing to be available at music festivals.

Mr Hidding’s attitude is the antithesis of what it means to be a responsible minister who deals with facts, not fiction, in determining best policy.

MORE: HIDDING DISMISSES PILL TESTING AT MUSIC FESTIVALS

Mr Hidding is hiding behind the discredited zero tolerance attitude to drugs that bedevils the world, but which is at last shifting in some key jurisdictions such as the European Union, the US and Latin America where drug-testing at festivals occurs.

Mr Hidding is deluding himself thinking that calls by politicians such as him for young people not to ingest drugs works. We know that demand for illicit drugs globally has not fallen since the commencement of prohibition in the late 1960s.

We also know that in Australia music festivals are very popular and are an occasion for young people to take pills and drink alcohol.

Forlorn attempts by police to stop young people enjoying drugs at festivals are a joke. There is barely a music festival in the Western World that is completely free of drugs.

So the reality in Tasmania is that at music festivals such as the famous Falls Festival the drugs are available. You can also bring your own supply into these festivals.

The refusal by governments to acknowledge this means there is no harm minimisation strategy at festivals, despite diverse groups such as drug campaigners, music entrepreneurs, festival organisers, police unions and doctors supporting testing.

So because of the actions of politicians like Mr Hidding young people are exposed needlessly to death or physical and mental harm as a result of there being no ability to test the drugs they consume.

The attitude of Mr Hidding and other “head in the sand” types is that they are not responsible for deaths and harm at music festivals because people should not take drugs anyway.

This is rubbish. Mr Hidding and other politicians should recognise the reality of life and provide regulations and strategies to ensure safety is put above ideological posturing and moralising.

Every parent in Tasmania with children who go to music festivals should be angry at Mr Hidding’s approach.

Politicians like Mr Hidding and other ministers around Australia who refuse to allow drug testing at music festivals are responsible for allowing unsafe practices to flourish.

The Greens, some in the ALP and the police union in Tasmania acknowledge that parents should not have to needlessly worry when their teenager and young adult son or daughter attends a festival.

Not only is Mr Hidding snubbing his nose at parents and young people and the welfare of both, he is acting against medical advice.

In the Medical Journal of Australia in March, a paper argued that testing is critical. Professor Robin J. Butterfield of St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney and his colleagues called for testing trials to be established to prevent deaths and harm at festivals. The nation’s leading expert on illicit drugs Dr Alex Wodak and emergency medicine physician David Caldicott also advocated for such testing.

Parents and festival patrons should be concerned that Mr Hidding is ignoring high-quality medical advice.

Mr Hidding’s attitude is in contrast to the US where police and legislators are allowing groups such as Dance Safe to set up testing facilities at festivals. This is because police and legislators know their duty is to ensure people are safe at festivals and that medical advice is heeded.

Politicians like Mr Hidding and other ministers around Australia who refuse to allow drug testing at music festivals are responsible for allowing unsafe practices to flourish.

They are as dangerous to society as were politicians in the 1980s and 1990s who refused to allow condom vending machines to ensure a reduction in life threatening sexually transmitted diseases.

Some festival organisers, doctors and parents might ignore Mr Hidding’s stupidity and ensure testing facilities are available when the next music festival season comes. It would be hard to see sensible police officers enforcing absurd drug laws in such a case. Police want safe music festivals and are much more realistic about drugs than their Minister.

Lawyer Greg Barns was an adviser to NSW Liberal premier Nick Greiner and the Howard government. Disendorsed as the Liberal candidate for Denison in 2002, he joined the Democrats. In 2013, he was Wikileaks Party adviser.