There are a helluva lot of conversations going about the possibility of pill testing at musical festivals – and, for the record, it should absolutely be a thing – and there’s even the possibility that activists won’t wait for the law to catch up to make it happen.
But now Victorian cops are making it clear that people conducting pill-testing could face criminal charges for doing it. “In Victoria it is currently unlawful to use, possess, cultivate or traffic illicit drugs in any form,” Victoria Police said in a statement.
Canberra-based emergency medical specialist, David Caldicott has been calling for pill-testing at festival for yonks, arguing that it would be an effective harm minimisation strategy. He thinks the cops are wrong, and that if the pill testers are licensed forensic chemists they’d be in the clear.
“We’re very confident that were we to be arrested in this environment it would be [a] wrongful arrest,” he told The Age.
Governments around Australia are insanely resistant to the very notion of pill testing, with the New South Wales government being particularly against the idea.
“A pill testing regime may well tell you what’s in that pill, but it has no way to tell you whether it will kill you or not,” NSW Police Minister Troy Grant told Four Corners earlier in the year.
“What you’re proposing there is a government regime that is asking for taxpayers’ money to support a drug dealer’s business enterprise — that’s not going to happen in New South Wales while ever I’m the minister.”
Dark days. With Victorian cops keen to arrest anyone who tries to implement any sensible harm reduction policies and no other government having the courage to even entertain it, it’s not looking great for reform.
Source: The Age.
Photo: Getty Images.
