When government policy is failing so badly that people are dying, the time for a re-think is long overdue.

It's time the Berejiklian Government listened to grieving families, former police and experts all calling for more effective action on drugs-related deaths at festivals.

Sorry, this video has expired Two people died over the weekend at Defqon1.

Specifically, it's time they entered the real world by shifting from a tin-eared approach of criminalisation on drugs to one of harm minimisation.

Following the weekend, two people are dead and three are critically ill from suspected drugs-related incidents at Penrith's Defqon.1 music festival.

And NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian's reaction? She wants to close the festival down and tells everyone not to do drugs.

Surely the NSW Government should have by now learned from knee-jerk reactions like this.

When NSW struggled with violence as a result of one of the most dangerous drugs in Australia — alcohol — their solution of the lockout laws was, and continues to be, highly divisive.

It shifted, rather than resolved the problem and all but closed down half of Sydney's night-time economy.

Seven hundred people sought medical assistance at Defqon.1. It shows how widespread the issue is. ( Facebook: Defqon. 1 Festival Australia )

'Don't do drugs' line is unsophisticated

The Premier's reaction yesterday was just as ill-advised. The "don't do drugs" line echoes the satire of Southpark's Mr Mackey ("drugs are bad, mmk"). It's unsophisticated, blind to the realities of young people's lives and ignorant to the complexities of the problem.

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Worst of all, though, there's a solution on the table that has already been proven to work at the Groovin' the Moo festival in Canberra earlier this year. They conducted Australia's first ever festival pill-testing service, as a result of the ACT Labor Government working closely with the police. Two samples were potentially deadly, and those festival-goers chose to dispose of their drugs. Nobody died.

But the Premier's position on pill testing ignores all this.

"Anyone who advocates pill testing is giving the green light to drugs, that is absolutely unacceptable, there is no such thing as a safe drug," she said yesterday.

Melbourne woman Adriana Buccianti is one of the people the Premier needs to meet and listen to. Her reaction to Canberra's successful pill-testing trial was very different.

"That's two lives saved. I was so emotional when I read that," Adriana told me.

Says Adriana Buccianti: "I can't get my son back but I want to make sure no-one else has to go through the hell of losing their child to a mistake like I did." ( Supplied )

'My son made a mistake and it killed him'

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Adriana's son Daniel died from a drugs-related incident at Victoria's Rainbow Serpent music festival in 2012. He was 34. She's convinced that drug-checking services could have saved him.

Her call is backed by almost 40,000 Australians who've signed her Change.org petition and by experts on the ground such as Alex Wodak, a physician and the director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, and David Caldicott, an emergency medicine consultant at the Emergency Department of Canberra's Calvary Hospital.

For the past three years, I've supported Adriana in her campaign by helping her tell her heartbreaking story of her son Dan's preventable death. She consistently says that the "don't do drugs" line is unpragmatic and is costing lives.

In her petition, she writes:

"My son made a mistake in taking a drug. It wasn't what he thought it was, and it killed him. Doctors and experts are saying Australian festivals need to urgently introduce 'drug checking services' to stop more deaths. Too many kids are dying and it's not yet policy. I can't get my son back but I want to make sure no-one else has to go through the hell of losing their child to a mistake like I did."

If politicians like Ms Berejiklian were to sit in a room with Adriana and look her in the eye as she tells her story, and actually listen to her, it may give them cause to pause and reflect.

Conservatives are coming onboard, slowly

In June, I helped get Adriana to Canberra and in front of politicians. She was able to crowd-fund from her petition signers to travel from Melbourne to Canberra.

Dan Buccianti hours before his death. ( Supplied )

She met Labor Senator Lisa Singh, who has been advocating for pill testing for some time, and is pushing for others in her own party to come with her.

But significantly, conservatives are slowly coming on board. This could well be an issue like marriage equality, whereby conservatives start by saying "no means no", but slowly persuasion and the reality of people's lives on the ground force them to pluck their fingers out of their ears.

In Canberra, Adriana also met with Nationals backbencher Warren Entsch and shared her story with him. She got quite emotional and he listened, hugged her and said on radio: "How many funerals do we have to go to of people that've taken these substances and found out they're not what they were sold?"

If his advocacy in this space is as effective as his persuasion on marriage equality, he may eventually take the Coalition with him.

One person in Adriana's corner is former Victorian police officer Melissa Jardine.

She told me: "In 2005, I was involved in a dog operation at a Melbourne festival. We arrested a number of young people for carrying 1-2 pills. More than 10 years later, this approach has done nothing to reduce drug use. It eats into police budgets and time that officers could use to address more serious crime such as assaults and domestic violence.

"When I joined in 2001, I expected to be overrun responding to illicit drugs incidents. I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead, police were overwhelmingly responding to the fallout from alcohol use with pub fights, street violence, car accidents and domestic violence.

"It can be difficult for police to engage in a nuanced debate about the harms from drug use without being labelled "soft" on drugs. But not all drugs cause the same amount of harm. The ACT police have shown it's possible to navigate these debates successfully."

Revellers can "double drop" their drugs to avoid detection, and then risk overdosing. ( Getty Images: Darrian Traynor )

Searches can lead to 'double drop' overdoses

Data released on August 30 revealed that strip searches have almost doubled from 590 in 2016, to 1124 last year. In 2018, 735 people have already been strip searched. Of those strip searches, more than half every year find no drugs at all.

One of the potential problems here is that revellers can "double drop" their drugs (take two pills at once) to avoid detection, and then risk overdosing.

How much more evidence do politicians need to see that the "zero-tolerance"-"just say no" approach is all hard talk and bluster to appease people out of touch with the reality of young people's lives in Australia today?

Seven hundred people sought medical assistance at Defqon.1. It shows how widespread the issue is, but also the appetite for festival revellers to get more effective information about their safety.

Zero tolerance is a catastrophic failure. It's naive and dangerous and costing lives.

It's time for politicians and police advocating this approach to change tack — and potentially save lives.

Gary Nunn is a freelance writer. Twitter: @garynunn1