The ACT government has recommitted itself to pill testing at festivals if the insurance can be sorted out.
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It's also planning to increase the hours which the permanent pill testing centre in Civic operates during the Spilt Milk festival on November 25.
A site for festival-goers to have drugs tested on site was available before the pandemic but insurers have had cold feet since.
Organisers say that without insurance, testing can't happen. They said they were negotiating with an insurer to provide cover for the service where people can take their drugs to be analysed.
A permanent site run by CanTEST has been running in the centre of city on Thursdays and Fridays.
The ACT government said it "is committed to harm minimisation and considers that drug checking (also known as pill testing) is part of a sensible approach to limiting the dangers of illicit drug use by the community and has the potential to save lives".
"Under the Festivals Pill Testing Policy, the ACT government supports festival-based drug checking. The availability of pill testing onsite at Spilt Milk in Canberra on 25 November 2023 has not been confirmed.
"CanTEST Health and Drug Checking Service are resourced by the ACT government to provide additional service hours surrounding music festivals in Canberra. The opening hours for CanTEST over the Spilt Milk weekend are yet to be determined."
Harm Reduction Australia promotes and helps organise the testing. Its trying to get insurance to run a service at Spilt Milk.
Its president Gino Vumbaca said: "I am hopeful. We do think we've found someone. If we can get this insurance, then we'll be back."
Insurance has been the big block against the return of an on-site place for people with drugs to get those drugs tested before consuming them or not.
Mr Vumbaca is hopeful now after failing to get anywhere with hundreds of other insurers. If he is right, pill-testing at the festival on November 25 would be there just after possession of small amounts of drugs was decriminalized on October 28, so making penalties light.
He said insurance brokers on behalf of Harm Reduction Australia had held meetings with big companies in London and Japan to no avail. Companies which insured pill-testing in New Zealand didn't want to do the same in Australia, he said.
Before the pandemic, Canberra was a pioneer of pill testing at festivals in Australia. The last time it was used was at Groovin the Moo in 2019.
Festivals in Canberra tried out the system in in 2018 and 2019. ANU researchers then evaluated the trials and concluded "that the service impacted positively on patron knowledge, attitudes and behaviours".
The people who ran the previous festival service and the current city-centre service say that the detailed chemical analysis of drugs identifies ingredients, including contamination. They say they do not advise people to take the drugs and do advise them of the dangers of taking them.
"We never tell anyone that their drug is safe," David Caldicott, the doctor leading the permanent testing site run by CanTEST, said.
Mr Vumbaca said drug users were told: "The safest way is not to use the drug. However, if you are going to use this drug, this is what you need to do, and if there is a problem, this is what you need to do."
He is hopeful that the on-site festival testing can return - "That would be fantastic," he said, though he adds, "there's oft a slip twixt cup and lip".
In 2018, the ACT became the only jurisdiction to allow testing.
Between 2017 and 2019, six young people died in NSW because of MDMA (ecstasy) toxicity or complications of MDMA use at music festivals.
In an inquest, the state's coroner urged a pill-testing trial, but the then state premier Gladys Berijiklian rejected the idea.
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But it was taken up by the ACT so pill testing took place at the Groovin the Moo festival in 2018 and 2019.
In 2019, the service detected seven instances of a lethal ingredient to a drug. All seven participants with the substance discarded the pills when they found out what was in them.
It is not clear why insurance companies are so reluctant to underwrite a festival pill-testing service. Dr Caldicott said that no actuarial calculation (of risk to the insurer of a big pay out) justified the reluctance.
Over the weekend, two men died and 10 other people were taken to hospital after attending Sydney music festivals. Police said they were waiting for autopsy reports, amid speculation the men died after taking illicit drugs.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
