Sam Martin

Sam Martin

Journalism Student

I am Deakin University student who enjoys writing. Particularly about politics and the online discussion that follows. I am primarily a Psychology student that works at Coles part time but writing has always been a passion of mine. I am heavily opinionated but I tend to not let that get in the way of finding the truth to whatever topic I am discussing. For university work, I tend to mainly focus on writing lab reports but have recently decided to do an elective in journalism. I am to write in the most professional way imaginable so as to make my points clear and concise to the reader.

A little about myself:

Why Pill Testing Should Be Legalized and Why It Has Not Been Already

Over the last few years we have seen a large spike in the amount of drug related deaths at music festivals. It has become all too common to turn on the news channel and hear the tragedy that is a young person losing their life due to a drug overdose. The aspect that mainstream news outlets will never tell you about these horrific ‘overdoses’ is that these deaths are not actually overdoses but are deaths caused due to lethal additives being added to and sold as what people suspect to be ‘cleaner’ substances such as MDMA.

Pill testing aims to act as a safeguard for anyone who would have otherwise taken this substance anyways in hopes to identify these lethal additives before the substance is ingested. It should be a no-brainer to have pill testing facilities at all music festivals in which the prevalence of narcotics is high. However, due to political reasons and negative stigma surrounding the use of narcotics in Australia these facilities have not been implemented on a wide scale which is resulting in more and more people taking unknown substances that could potentially lead to death.

So why is this harm reduction method rejected by governments if it aims to do nothing more than save the lives of festival goers? The answer is that due to the War on Drugs creating a negative view of how drugs are perceived by society, governments on a state and federal level have adopted the mantra that these recreational drug-takers are responsible for their own life and if they never touched these drugs in the first place then they would not be at risk of hurting themselves. This is the viewpoint of someone that is looking through rose-coloured glasses.

Ever since the War on Drugs was conceived by the Nixon administration in the 1960s people have experienced the negative effects of treating drug use as a crime and not as a health concern. In the last 50 years or so it has become incredibly clear that the War on Drugs has done little to benefit the people whose lives have been ruined by narcotics abuse. The fact is that people (festival goers in particular) are going to indulge themselves in these dangerous chemicals regardless of their legality and rather than this war decreasing levels of drug use, it has made harm reduction a more difficult task than ever.

This out-dated mantra can be seen endorsed by NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian as she says she is “closing the door” on pill-testing after NSW had trialled pill testing at the annual Spilt Milk festival. What Berejiklian is effectively saying is that she would rather let (young) people die than implement strategies that could potentially save them. This closing of the door is for nothing more than to maintain a strong stance in the eyes of the public on this outdated view. Even after pill testing was trialled again at Groovin The Moo where out of 170 tested substances, 7 contained the drug N-Ethylpentylone which has been linked to drug related deaths in the past. These politicians are stubborn enough to ignore the results and will continue to allow people to die without reason.

Politicians like Gladys are using the lives of these festival goers as bargaining chips to obtain votes from people who still hold this classical viewpoint that is sympathetic to the War on Drugs and this is the main reason as to why pill-testing has not yet been legalised. Do these politicians think if they keep saying that abstinence is the key that these festival goers will suddenly stop putting themselves in harms way? Or do they just not care enough about the hundreds of lives lost at these festivals to fund harm reduction implementation?

As a festival goer myself, the politics that is associated with pill-testing is highly concerning. This should be a cut and dry issue as there are no shades of grey when it comes to saving lives. The reason why pill-testing is an invaluable life saving method is because drug makers and dealers sell people MDMA capsules/pills that are laced with cheaper and much more dangerous additives such as PMA, also known as Dr Death. Clean MDMA is not nearly as lethal to the human body (albeit still a risk to ingest) as this PMA chemical. Obviously festival goers are not interested in getting high on something that has death in its name, yet the current policies convey a strong sense of the ‘it’s your funeral’ approach.

Testing pills for these additives would see a decrease in drug related deaths at festivals which should be of a higher concern than drug use on its own. PMA was the lethal chemical that killed festival goer Hoang Tran at the Knockout Circuz in Sydney in 2017. He was only 18 years old and his life could have been spared had pill-testing been implemented.

A survey conducted in 2010 showed that 11% of 20-29-year-olds has taken ecstasy in the last year before the survey was conducted. When taking this enormous percentage of drug taking youth into account a strong need for pill-testing should be conveyed as there is no other way of knowing what these young people have put into their bodies. The fact that the Australian government does not agree with this statement is highly concerning.

Professor at UNSW, Allison Ritter, in her article Five Good Reasons has highlighted another incredibly important aspect of the pill-testing discussion which is that not only do people definitely reconsider ingesting the drug (two-thirds of all pill-testing festival goers changed their mind when trialled in Austria) but the pill-testing booth/facility itself is a great initiation point of harm reduction education and safe use.

So not only does pill-testing see a decrease in the use of unknown and lethal substances but also provides narcotics users with valuable and potentially life saving information which makes it difficult to understand why this harm reduction strategy is not as prevalent as it should be. Ritter goes on to mention that Australia is internationally appraised for the harm reduction methods that have been implemented in other areas of narcotics abuse, such as safe injecting rooms and methadone clinics.

So why then is the government so adamantly against pill testing? The answer the Berejiklian government believes is that people really do overdose on pure MDMA and therefore pill-testing is ineffective. Whilst it is true that pure MDMA can be lethal at high doses, pill-testing facilities would be able to test the purities of these substances and professionals would be able to advise patrons accordingly which potentially halts any thoughts of ingestion. Pill-testing facilities acting as information centres is why the program could save lives as people who are concerned enough to test their substance will be attentive to the advice given to them.

I had a chance to meet and talk to some festival goers at Victoria’s Beyond the Valley to see what the patrons themselves thought on the topic. These festivals are known for their psychedelic music and hard-partying antics and it did not take me long to find passionate answers.

When asked, Jason from Geelong (aged 21) told me that he has used recreational drugs in the past and thought pill testing should be legalised because he believes “anything that can save a life is a positive thing. Whether there is testing or not, drug use will always occur. So, with pill-testing not only does it help to prevent deaths and side effects from dangerous fillers, but it also helps to educate the population on the dangers of drugs and drug use”. When asked if he thought negative stigma associated with drug use was the reason pill testing is still illegal Jason said “Yes. Nobody is suggesting that pills are good, its actually the fact that pills are so harmful we need this. Nobody can stop crime or drugs so education and knowledge are the only power we have over it”.

Another festival goer, Hamish (aged 20) agrees with Jason’s viewpoint as he says “pill testing is a very important thing to do. It helps to make sure you’re taking what you think you’re taking, preventing injuries to yourself in the future”. I asked Hamish would he use pill-testing if he needed to and he said, “I would but having police around the areas to test my drugs would scare me and make me not want to do it”. This negative stigma and fear of being reprimanded is clearly a safety issue that must be considered as police presence may lead to people not testing their drugs and taking them anyways.

The issue of police presence and unsafely ingesting these chemicals is a big one as one of the main causes of drug related deaths at festivals is that people take their entire supply before they get to the entry of the festival that is typically guarded by sniffer dogs. Not only are sniffer dogs ineffective with a 74% false positive rate but they scare people into overdosing rather than safely testing and ingesting their drugs.

The fear of being reprimanded is what cost Alex Ross-King her life. In 2019 Alex Ross-King passed away due to drug overdose at the age of 19 at the FOMO music festival in Paramatta. In fear of police, Alex ingested her entire supply of MDMA and died from an overdose several hours later. Had this police presence not been so overwhelming Alex may still be with us, but the classical War on Drugs viewpoint takes another life instead.

Out of the 10 similar answers I received from festival goers (all in support of pill-testing) Carl from Melbourne (aged 22) was the only person with the viewpoint of “if people don’t want to die from taking drugs then they should not take drugs. It’s as simple as that”. While in theory Carl’s view on the issue works, I pressed him about the fact that people are going to take these chemicals anyways to which he replied, “then that is their cross to bear”.

While I found it incredibly interesting to find a young person with this view (82% of 2300 young Australians surveyed are in support of pill-testing), it perfectly aligns with and highlights the attitude that governments such as the Berejiklian’s in NSW want to approach this issue with, that is to say, without compassion or logic.