This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

On-the-spot fines for drug possession and tougher penalties for dealers who supply drugs to people who die are among new measures proposed by the New South Wales government following drug deaths at music festivals, though pill-testing remains off the table.

The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, on Tuesday said dealers could be jailed for up to 25 years if people who bought drugs off them subsequently died.

The proposed changes – which would also include on-the-spot fines of up to $500 for people caught with drugs at festivals – were recommended by an expert panel set up after two deaths at the Defqon1 music festival in September.

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Berejiklian believed the punishment should be between 10 and 25 years’ jail, in the range of grievous bodily harm and manslaughter charges.

The government-established panel was asked to give advice on how to improve safety at festivals but not to consider the merits of pill-testing.

The police commissioner, Mick Fuller, a member of the panel, said the belief that pill-testing was going to save lives in NSW was a “myth”.

“There’s no science behind what per cent is safe to take,” he told reporters.

He backed the premier’s plan to throw the book at dealers.

“The stronger the charge the better,” Fuller said.

But Greens MP Cate Faehrmann said the government’s decision to rule out pill testing was “disgraceful”.

“All this ongoing war on drugs has given us is more dead bodies,” Faehrmann said in a statement.

“This was an opportunity to listen to the experts and they’ve clearly failed to do that.”

Asked how the laws would be policed, and whether people giving pills to friends would lump them in the same category as drug dealers, Berejiklian said the government was “working through those legal issues”.

“I value human life,” she said. “I don’t want to see human life taken away unnecessarily.”

Take Control Campaign spokesman Kieran Palmer took aim at the police commissioner’s claim that pill testing was “a myth”.

“Pill testing is not a ‘myth’ and it is dangerous to refer to it as such,” Palmer said in a statement.

“Putting our heads in the sand and ignoring the evidence will not protect our kids from harm.”

Alex Wodak, the president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, told Guardian Australia in September the zero-tolerance approach had already been tried.

“Now we’ve had saturation policing at Defqon1 and still these tragic events are taking place,” he said. “Sooner or later, a government in Australia is going to get compassionate and sensible. Until they do, the premier and police are going to be hammered mercilessly.”