The pill testing debate seems louder than ever, and with festival season in full swing, it's unlikely to quieten down any time soon.

Yesterday, calls to introduce pill testing services at music festivals were renewed after a 19-year-old woman died from taking a unidentified substance at the FOMO music festival in Sydney at the weekend.

The young woman's death followed that of a 20-year-old Melbourne man who died of a suspected overdose at a music festival in Victoria, and a 22-year-old Brisbane man who died after taking an unknown substance at a music festival in New South Wales.

The festival-goers are among six young people believed to have died from drug-taking at Australian music festivals in the past five months.

As the debate about whether to introduce pill testing continues, let's take a look at some of the biggest claims made by politicians, experts and commentators this year — and whether their claims check out.

Claim 1: Pill testing leads to more drug use

In early January, Liberal MP and ACT shadow Attorney-General Jeremy Hanson told RN Breakfast: "What the evidence says to us is that pill testing will actually lead to increased [drug] use."

Similar comments were made by Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers in an interview on Sky News: "I believe the condoning of illegal drugs will lead to more deaths."

But drug policy expert Alison Ritter, who co-authored a global review of drug checking services in 2017, told the ABC there was no evidence to support this claim.

"We know that it doesn't produce an increase in drug use … and there's no evidence of harm associated with pill testing," Professor Ritter said.

In fact, research shows pill testing can lead to less drug taking, and help people consume drugs in a safer way.

"What's clear from the results of the services operating [in Europe] is that people make different choices based on the results of the testing — some choose to put their drugs into an amnesty bin, others choose to take half as much as perhaps they thought they would," Professor Ritter said.

The results of the UK's first pill testing trial published last month found one in five substances tested was not what people expected, and among people mis-sold substances, two thirds chose to hand over further substances to be destroyed.

Researchers in the United States, Austria, Germany and Australia have made similar findings: people who use pill testing services are less likely to consume drugs if they are advised the drugs contain harmful substances.

Claim 2: A quarter of people under 30 are using drugs

In a recent interview on 3AW, leader of the Reason Party and pill testing supporter Fiona Patten said the 'just say no [to drugs]' message was not being adhered to by young Australians.

"We know that probably a quarter of the population under 30 is experimenting with drugs at the moment," Ms Patten said.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Ms Patten's claim checks out.

The 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey found 28 per cent of people aged 20-29 had used illicit drugs in the past year (compared to 16 per cent of the general population).

Cannabis was the most commonly used drug, followed by ecstasy, cocaine and methamphetamines.

Claim 3: Pill testing creates a false sense of security

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro recently wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald that pill testing was a "regime designed to give your loved ones and their friends the green light like to take an illicit substance at a music festival".

It's a concern shared by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, and Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley, who recently said "advice from Victoria Police tells us it can give people a false, and potentially fatal, sense of security about illicit drugs".

But David Caldicott, an emergency doctor and senior lecturer at the Australian National University, said concerns about pill testing providing "quality assurance" to drug users demonstrated a lack of understanding of how pill testing works.

"You are advised even before anything starts that if you want to be 100 per cent certain about not being hurt by drugs, you should not use any drugs," said Dr Caldicott, who led Australia's first pill-testing trial in Canberra in 2018.

"You will not be told at any stage that your drug is safe," he said.

In Australia, prior to the testing process, patrons are advised (and required to sign a legal waiver confirming they understand) the test does not provide evidence of drug purity, safety, dosage, or information about how they will individually respond to the substance being tested.

Once they are provided with the results of their drug test, patrons are directed to a drug and alcohol counsellor who provides information about the risks of consuming illicit drugs, and ways they can reduce their risk (such as not the taking substance, or taking a smaller dose).

Claim 4: Pill testing can't detect new synthetic drugs

You might have heard that the type of pill testing being proposed at Australian music festivals is unable to detect the presence of dangerous new synthetic variants.

It's a claim that was recently made during a pill testing discussion on the ABC, and again by toxicologist Michelle Williams in the Sydney Morning Herald: "… the testing will not inform the person that their tablet may also contain novel psychoactive substances such as NBOMe — a deadly synthetic hallucinogen".

In Australia's first pill testing trial, a technology known as infrared spectroscopy was used to check drug samples against a library of 30,000 chemical compounds.

Dr Caldicott said although the machine is unable to identify the exact nature of every new drug, it is able to detect the presence of unknown substances — and immediately red-flag these samples.

At the Canberra trial, chemists detected the presence of two potentially lethal substances, one of which was believed to be NBOMe.

"We don't have to give it a name — we can say this is something new and dangerous," he said.

When I spoke to Dr Williams, she said although she wasn't opposed to pill testing, she still had some concerns about the "detection limits" of the current technology.

"Given new and emerging drugs are typically far more potent, can the device detect them at the level that's going to have harmful effects?" she said.

According to Pill Testing Australia, infrared spectroscopy is a "highly discriminatory method".

Dr Caldicott said while it is technically possible the machine may not detect particular substances at very low levels, it was unlikely substances at such levels would be harmful to people.

"Our colleagues in analytical chemistry require perfection. We require technology that is safe and changes people's behaviour. That's our criteria," he said.

Claim 5: Pill testing doesn't confirm drug purity

In early January, Queensland Liberal MP Andrew Laming tweeted his opposition to pill testing at music festivals, saying "only HPLChromatography in hospital labs tells you dose; and dose is what mostly kills users".

It's a concern shared by forensic toxicologist Andrew Leibie, who recently told The Australian that "on-site pill testing doesn't answer how much ecstasy is within the drug".

Dr Laming and Dr Leibie are right that pill testing technology used at Australian festivals is (at least for now) unable to provide exact information on the purity or doses of ingredients in the drugs presented.

Instead, the technology provides information on what the ingredients in the drugs are and gives a "qualitative indication" of purity, including what substances are predominant in the sample, Dr Caldicott said.

"We can identify major compounds and minor compounds and their relationships," he said.

When asked whether he was concerned the technology couldn't identify exact drug purity, Dr Caldicott said "not at all".

"If we were providing a safety or quality guarantee, we would be worried. But our baseline is: you probably shouldn't be consuming this," he said.

"We're pretty careful to talk about dose … every single test is contextualised to the individual about what it is and what the harms could be."

Dr Caldicott rejected the idea that laboratory-grade technology is what's required to give people the information they need about drug safety and potency.

"That approach is thinking about it in the context of prosecuting somebody, but we're thinking about it in the context of changing somebody's behaviour. So, it's quite a different bar," he said.

Claim 6: There's no evidence pill testing saves lives

Two weeks ago, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said her government would consider pill testing "if there was a way in which [they] could ensure that lives were saved".

"But there is no evidence provided to the government on that," Ms Berejiklian said.

Speaking on ABC TV's The Drum, Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, said demonstrating a clear reduction in deaths from pill testing was a real challenge.

"All these kind of interventions, like medically supervised injecting rooms, like needle syringe programs … are very difficult to evaluate," Dr Wodak said.

"We can't do a randomised control trial — which is the standard way we evaluate most new clinical interventions — because they're either inappropriate or not feasible for this kind of change in environment."

Dr Caldicott agreed, and said choosing not to introduce pill testing on this basis demonstrated "a lack of understanding of scientific principles".

He said other indicators of pill testing benefits could and should be used as evidence.

"We know that where pill testing occurs, fewer people use drugs, and fewer people use mixtures of drugs," he said.

"Those are independent risk factors for overdose and death. So, we can stop the things that lead to death."

In September, the Premier established an expert panel to improve safety at music festivals, but ruled out pill testing for consideration.

Harm Reduction Australia president Gino Vumbaca said the evidence for pill testing is "being ignored".

"I think it's a bit disingenuous of the Premier to now say, 'give me the evidence', when she set up a taskforce that specifically excluded evidence being presented or discussed," Mr Vumbaca said.

"To not even have the ability to sit down and discuss this with ministers is a fairly sad indictment of public discourse and policy."