All of the 64 drug-related deaths at music festivals across Australia since the year 2000 were preventable.
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That's the equivalent of a busload of young people, three-quarters of them male, are dead because of outdated approaches to managing illicit drug use that fail to recognise it is a health issue, not a law and order one.
It is not unreasonable to assume that some of those who died did so because they swallowed their whole stash in one go because they thought they were about to be approached by police.
The long discredited "war on drugs" mentality has much to answer for, not least because of the opposition to sensible safety measures such as decriminalisation and pill testing it underpins.
Pill testing at music festivals is a no-brainer, given its successful trials. So too is scaling back the police presence and the use of sniffer dogs.
Criminalising drug use has not worked. It never will. Young people, especially young men, are risk-takers. All too often they see themselves as three metres tall and bullet proof.
For some drug use, especially in a music festival environment, is an act of exploration. For others it may be a form of rebellion. A "rage against the machine".
While neither of these factors justify using illicit drugs they do suggest that so long as the drugs are available there will be no shortage of people wanting to take them.
So, instead of treating drug users as outlaws and threatening them with criminal sanctions that could inhibit their chances of finding work or travelling overseas later in life why not go down the path of education?
That is what Dr David Caldicott, the co-author of the first extensive study on drug-related music festival deaths in Australia, has been advocating for years.
He helped pioneer pill testing at ACT music festivals in 2018 and 2019 and he is responsible for the establishment of a permanent pill testing site in Civic that operates on Thursdays and Fridays.
Dr Caldicott, who rightly says that society failed the 64 people who have died at music festivals in the last 23 years, mourns the loss of talent and humanity that toll represents.
"They might have ended up being captains of industry. These are young people who have unnecessarily died - and that's a tragedy".
Then, of course, there is the bottomless pit of grief and suffering these deaths have created.
Dozens of families all around the country will never move on from the despair that came into their lives when they discovered that a beloved son or daughter, brother or sister, or even parent, had died. Closure is a myth.
Pill testing works. That was established by the evaluation of the ACT festival trials conducted by Pill Testing Australia.
"The service impacted positively on patron knowledge, attitudes and behaviours," researchers found.
Dr Caldicott, who was heavily involved in the trials, said at the time that almost all of the festival goers who were told their drugs were contaminated or likely to cause serious harm discarded them.
He also noted that the testing process was an opportunity to have a conversation with individuals about what could happen.
"We never tell anybody their drug is safe," he said.
While the ACT government has drawn fire from conservative politicians over its drug testing policy and the decriminalisation of small quantities of illicit drugs it is actually leading the way.
The war on drugs has not worked and can never be won. Madness is continuing to do the same thing over and over in the hope of achieving a different result.