Anadolu Agency via Getty Images MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - SEPTEMBER 12: Leader of the parliamentary caucus of the Australian Greens Richard Di Natale delivers a speech during a demonstration to protest accepting so few Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Melbourne, Australia on September 12, 2015. (Photo by Recep Sakar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Federal Greens leader, Senator Richard Di Natale, has reiterated his calls for Australia to introduce testing of illicit drugs. As Australia grapples with how to treat the nation's party drug problem, with young people dying or becoming hospitalised after adverse reactions to pills or powders at parties of festivals, calls for change are getting louder. Critics of current drug policy -- sniffer dogs, strip searches and the rest -- claim that a regime where partygoers could have their drugs tested and analysed before they take them would help people make better choices about their behaviour. Di Natale, speaking in Melbourne on Monday, again outlined his calls for Australia to adopt a pill testing program so drug users know what they are about to ingest. MORE: How Would Pill Testing Work? "We've got young people overdosing and dying, because they're taking substances of unknown quality and purity and the consequence is we're losing people. Why wouldn't we put in place a measure that prevents those young people from ingesting potentially harmful substances, and keeps them safe," Di Natale said. "It makes perfect sense, it's the principle of harm minimisation here that we know works and it needs to be advanced through this public debate." He equated such a pill testing regime with the legal injecting room in Sydney's Kings Cross and the successful needle exchange program, with both programs aiming to support safe drug use for people who might have otherwise taken drugs in an unsafe manner, not to promote the use of drugs.

Police with sniffer dogs at Melbourne's Stereosonic Festival "Needle and syringe exchange is very effective, a way of preventing the spread of blood borne viruses and a way of bringing people to a treatment centre where they can engage with health professionals and have access to treatment when they need it," Di Natale said. "We're also having a conversation about pill testing. Now pill testing is harm minimisation just as needle and syringe exchange is harm minimisation. The NSW [Police] Minister says that pill testing won't happen under his watch and he uses the same old tired arguments that we use when needle and syringe exchange was first introduced into Australia. It's the same arguments, this nonsense that somehow it condones drug use. It doesn't. What it does is it prevents harm." MORE: My Son Died At A Music Festival. This Is Why I Support Pill Testing As The Huffington Post Australia reported previously, calls for pill testing have been coming from the medical and drug treatment professions for some time. In 2015, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s National Drug Strategy Household Survey reported 27 percent of Australians aged 20-29 had used illicit drugs in the preceding 12 months, with eight percent having used ecstasy in that period. The 2014 United Nations World Drug Report found Australians had the highest rate of ecstasy consumption on Earth. The deaths of young people Georgina Bartter, Sylvia Choi, Stefan Woodward in the last year have become the tragic shorthand for the consequences of illicit drug use, among several other music festival deaths believed to be related to drugs.