The underwhelming response to the state’s first official pill-testing service for music festivalgoers has been blamed on the involvement of the NSW government.

Only 103 people took up the offer made available at Wollongong’s Yours and Owls festival last weekend, among 30,000 attendees, while police additionally made 23 arrests for drug possession at the event.

Gino Vumbaca, the president of Harm Reduction Australia which oversees Pill Testing Australia for the state government, said some aspects of the exercise had been a success but that participation had been disappointing.

“[There were] fairly low numbers for the trial they ran, and we think it’s because it was led by the NSW government,” he told Central News… “and there might be some potential trust issues at play.”

“It was successful in terms of how it was measured, the style of service and the accuracy of results, we’re just not convinced it should be them (the NSW Government) running it.”

Vumbaca added pill testing remained an important source of information for recreational drug users.

“We give them advice on what it contains, as well as harm reduction advice around any potential harmful side effects and what to do if they get into trouble,” he said. “And if its toxic or really problematic we give them an opportunity to dispose in the amnesty bin.

“Basically it gives information to people to make a choice about whether or not they’ll continue to use or consume that drug.”

The Yours and Owls festival was the first with access to the free, pill-testing service which was run from a medical tent within the grounds. NSW Health tested 80 drug samples from 103 individuals across the two days of the event.

Pill testing, also known as drug checking, is a procedure in which the contents of attendee’s drugs are tested to check for potentially life-threatening or unknown substances.

This harm minimisation strategy has been developed to assist people in making safer, more informed choices around drug use, and in turn, limit the number of injuries and fatalities that are caused by drugs.

If you have normalising drugs through harm reduction interventions like pill testing, it’s just going to force up death.

Gary Christian, President of Drug Free Australia, which works on drug prevention in Australia said pill testing did little to prevent drug-related deaths.

“There were 392 deaths between the year 2000 and 2018… of those deaths, 14 per cent were just vulnerable and could not metabolise the MDMA,” he said, adding “48 per cent of deaths are from people who are using the ecstasy pill with alcohol and other drugs their using it with.

“The other 29 per cent are from accidents while their intoxicated, and when you think about it, pill testing doesn’t do a thing to test these three issues.”

President of the Law Society of NSW Jennifer Ball described it as a welcome step.

“The Law Society of NSW support substance testing as part of a harm-reduction strategy to address substance abuse in the community,” she said in a statement.

“The introduction of a ‘festival-based pill-testing trial’ by the NSW Government is a welcome step.”

While many people agreed with the initiative, there remain concerns including the issue of who runs the service, and whether pill testing is simply accommodating people’s illegal use of drugs.

But Christian said the focus on pill testing was misguided and harm reduction was the wrong policy.

“Pill testing does not address the real causes of pill deaths in Australia,” he added. “Only about 1 per cent of this is from other drugs mixed in the pill, and we only have three deaths out of those 392 within those 18 years, where we know they came from a bad batch.

“Basically, they’re lying to you and not addressing the real causes of death, the Government is wasting their money, putting it into pill-testing equipment when it doesn’t address the real causes of death.

“Harm reduction just multiplies death within Australia interminably, just multiplies them. And if you have normalising drugs through harm reduction interventions like pill testing, it’s just going to force up death.

“Since 2007 since they scrapped ‘Tough on Drugs’, deaths went up between two and six times, depending which drug you’re talking about, now if we do more pill testing and drug checking we’re just going to have deaths go even higher.”

According to NSW Health Minister, Ryan Park, nearly 90 per cent of the drugs tested over the weekend were aligned with what the consumers thought they were getting, and the other 10 per cent was made up of users that had not purchased or intended to purchase the drugs.

Wollongong Police, assisted by the Licensing Police and the NSW Police Dog Unit charged 23 people with drug possession during the Yours and Owls Music Festival, as they tried to enter. A further two infringement notices were issued, 51 drug detections (mainly of MDMA) were made, 18 people were cautioned over cannabis possession, 21 drug criminal infringement notices were issued and six patrons ejected.

Main image by Wendy Wei/Pexels.