Minister says ACT pill testing could encourage dealers to offload lower-quality drugs in NSW if it doesn’t adopt the same policy

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A minister in the ACT government has warned New South Wales is risking drug dealers selling “lower quality and more dangerous drugs” in the state by resisting pill testing at music festivals.

ACT Greens MP Shane Rattenbury, the territory’s minister for justice, says NSW’s opposition to pill testing could have an “alarming potential unintended consequence”.

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In a letter sent to NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian on Wednesday, Rattenbury cited advice from prominent pill-testing advocate Alex Wodak that the ACT’s support for pill testing could encourage dealers to offload lower-quality drugs in NSW.

“We also wish to bring to your attention an alarming potential unintended consequence for NSW if the ACT government continues with the successful pill-testing trial at subsequent events,” Rattenbury wrote in the letter, which was co-signed by NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann.

“We have been informed by policy experts, such as Dr Alex Wodak, the former director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent’s hospital, that if NSW does not introduce pill testing there is a significant risk that drug suppliers will respond by supplying higher quality, less dangerous, pills to festivals in the ACT while offloading lower quality and more dangerous drugs in NSW.

“This is because pill testing in the ACT will increase the risk of exposure for suppliers who sell poor quality and more dangerous products.

“There will then be a deterrent for the sale of these drugs into the ACT market and the NSW market will be the more attractive and less risky option for poor-quality drugs.”

The NSW government has been under increasing pressure to consider allowing pill testing at music festivals following the deaths of five people at music festivals since September 2018.

Last week the Royal Australasian College of Physicians joined the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners as well as the former Australian federal police commissioner Mick Palmer in calling for pill testing to be allowed at festivals.

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However the NSW government has so far resisted those calls. Berejiklian has remained sceptical of the benefits of pill testing.

Instead, the premier has said young people needed to be better educated and advised them not to take drugs.

“The message to young people is do not take these tablets,” she said earlier in January.

In his letter, Rattenbury pointed to the ACT’s Australian-first trial of pill testing at the Groovin’ the Moo festival in 2018.

“There is no silver bullet to addressing the dangers of illicit drugs, but we can listen to the experts who are calling for a health-focused approach to minimising their harms,” he wrote.

“Pill testing has been shown to be effective when it has been introduced overseas, and in 2018 Australia’s first pill-testing trial took place in Canberra.

“The results of this trial showed that pill testing works and can save lives. The Canberra pill-testing trial identified a variety of substances including one dangerous substance that has led to hospitalisations in New Zealand and deaths in the USA.”