Despite repeated calls and industry recommendations, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has again stood by her previous assertions that her State Government will not allow pill testing to take place at any music festival in the state.
22-year-old rugby player Josh Tam died on Saturday night after attending the Lost Paradise music festival near Gosford after taking an “unidentified substance.” Tam fell ill and was transported to hospital at around 8pm, but died a short time later. Two other people were taken to hospital in serious but stable condition following similar incidents on the night.
In response, Berejiklian doubled down on prior dogged promises to block any attempt to get potentially life-saving pill testing facilities into music festivals, stating instead there was “no evidence” the practice saved lives, and that they instead gave punters a “false sense of security” regarding drug intake.
Fronting media today, Berejiklian stated the Government was open to pill testing provided direct evidence that it would save lives was presented to the Government which, in this instance, likely means a direct case study example of a specific pill being presented to a testing facility that unequivocally would have killed its taker, the likes of which does not and cannot exist (short of someone being sold a cyanide caplet) because that’s not how pill testing works, strictly speaking.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian speaks to media after another festival death, saying there is ‘no evidence’ pill testing can save lives. pic.twitter.com/gSKlHKA0YU
— SBS News (@SBSNews) January 2, 2019
If there was a way in which we could ensure that lives were saved through pill testing we would consider it, but there is no evidence provided to the Government on that.
Of course if there is more to do we will do it. But pill testing gives people a false sense of security.
It scares me to know who normalised illicit drug taking has become at these festivals. I don’t want to see that.
Please do not indulge in this activity, and we’re saying these messages not to appear strict, but really to save lives.
Multiple studies on the subject of pill testing have concluded that not only does pill testing not result in increased drug taking and active harm, but it actually reduces the amount of overall drug taking at music festivals. A trial at Groovin The Moo in Canberra in April last year presented one case of a man who thought he had meth, but in actual fact had been given a stimulant drug called n-ethylpentalone which had been linked to drug-related deaths overseas.
That, however, is clearly not the “evidence” Berejiklian so flippantly seeks.
