With summer festival season fast approaching and no legally-mandated pill testing trial on the horizon, harm minimisation advocates in New South Wales will take the unprecedented step of handing out tester kits to patrons at major events.
Gino Vambuca, the president of Harm Reduction Australia, said today that the Just One Life campaign is, in part, a “protest manoeuvre” in the face of Premier Mike Baird‘s promise to prosecute anyone associated with pill-testing trials.
Vambuca told The Age that the kits are “basic” in nature, and will be able to test pills for the presence of particular drugs, although they will not detect the presence of other potentially harmful cutting agents. He said:
“This is definitely not our preferred option, it is our only available option … We are heading into festival season, we witnessed a number of deaths last year. The unfortunate reality is, tragedies will again occur this summer. When it came to discussing the available options with government, we couldn’t even get a foot in the door. We have since decided we cannot sit back idly and do nothing.”
Dr Ian Caldicott, who attempted to organise a private pill-testing trial earlier this year, insists that the basis for Just One Life is not to endorse of encourage drug use, but to try and prevent young people from dying.
He strongly advised punters against taking pills that show no traces of MDMA, but went on to warn that the tests cannot confirm levels of a particular drug, so a pill containing MDMA will by no means be safe.
“These kits give no information about purity,” he said, “and one of the biggest problems we have in this summer’s market is very high dose MDMA.”
The organisers of at least four major festivals have come out strongly in support of pill testing, however, they have been warned by law enforcement that allowing tests on site would be a “tacit admission” that illegal activities are occurring there.
Harm Reduction Australia say that the pill testing kits are not themselves illegal to possess, and are similar to those used by law enforcement agencies.
NSW Police have yet to comment.
Source: The Age.
Photo: El Pics / Getty.
