The deaths of five festival goers over the span of four months in NSW has led to a debate about pill testing. Music festivals, non-for-profit organisations, prominent musicians and bands, and even the Australian Medical Association and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) are calling for the NSW Government to introduce pill testing at music festivals, however the State Government has remained steadfast in its opposition.

Pill testing is a service offered in many Western European countries that allows participants to have their pills and drugs tested in order to determine what they actually contain. These services usually take place at music festivals, but they are also offered at clinics and medical centres in some countries. The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain have had this service for over twenty years, whilst the UK has recently introduced it. It is thought to minimise the harm in taking drugs by informing participants of the true contents of their illicit substances.

Advocates of pill testing cite that it is widely supported among 16-25 year olds, who are the main demographic present at music festivals. A recent report from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW found that 82% of those in this age bracket support the introduction of pill testing in Australia.

In support for the introduction of pill testing, the report from the UNSW states that pill testing removes the most dangerous and toxic substances from the black market. Because pill testing allows the government to collect data on what substances are actually in the pills, the government can then issue public health warnings, advising the public to stay away from a certain batch of “bad” pills. This forces dealers and suppliers to remove these toxic chemicals from their pills, in order to keep their market share!

A further reason for the introduction of pill testing is that the service supposedly changes  behaviour. According to the same report, 50% of those who have had their pills tested have subsequently “changed their consumption choices”. However, this claim is quite equivocal and has been challenged by other experts. The changing of consumption choices does not necessarily mean that the surveyed users are no longer consuming drugs, but merely that their behaviour in relation to drugs has changed. This could mean that they may take a different drug, less of a drug, or consume it on a less frequent basis. This same report also argues that two-thirds of those who use pill testing would not consume drugs after the results have been given to them. However, this is in contrast with data from the Groovin The Moo festival, held in Canberra in April 2018, where pill testing was trialled by the ACT Government. Of the 128 participants who used the service, only five surrendered their pills.

Whilst pill testing would allow medical professionals to reach out and potentially educate a demographic of the population who are overly-represented in drug-related deaths, the potential issues and inconclusive evidence surrounding pill testing cannot be ignored.

The first and perhaps most worrying issue is that no pill is safe and no amount of testing that takes place can make a pill safe. The best possible result a consumer could expect to receive from a pill testing service is that their pill is 100% pure MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy. This is the “best result” because they purchased the pill believing it to be ecstasy. Thus, it is unlikely that they would surrender their pill upon receipt of this information, and more likely that they would still consume it. Whilst not as dangerous as some substances that are used as “fillers” in pills, MDMA is nonetheless a potentially lethal drug. Anna Woods, a teenager from Sydney’s Northern Beaches, died in 1995 from consuming pure ecstasy at a nightclub in Sydney. It is unlikely that pill testing would have saved her life and her father is among one of the strongest critics of pill testing. If people are buying pills that they believe are pure ecstasy, being told that their pills are in fact pure ecstasy is unlikely to change their decision to take it.

Another issue is that on-site kits are not extremely accurate. In an online article from The Sydney Morning Herald, Andrew Leibie from Safework Laboratories, outlines that proper analysis of a pill would take at least twenty-four hours, something which is impossible to do at a music festival. Mr Leive also explains that on-site testing can only pick up a limited number of substances, with some of the most toxic and deadly, such as PMA, being undetectable. PMA has been linked to several deaths in Melbourne and the report notes that even one one-thousandth of a gram of it can be fatal. In addition, these kits are not able to detect many new substances that enter the market each year, or give details about the concentration of such substances in the pill. EU data has shown that over one hundred new substances are entering the market every year and it is impossible for on-site kits to keep up with the influx of new drugs.

Whilst pill testing is common in Western Europe, its effectiveness in saving lives is still questionable, There is very little data to show that pill testing ultimately leads to a reduction in consumption rates. The only proven benefit of pill testing is that the analysis of drugs allows the Government to detect bad batches of drugs and issue public health warnings. Nevertheless, there is still no evidence to demonstrate that pill testing leads to people no longer taking pills. Whilst public health warnings may persuade many people to not consume pills from an identified bad batch, there is no evidence to illustrate that they will not simply purchase new pills, those that do not originate from a bad batch, and consume them.

The legal question of liability is also an area of concern regarding pill testing. If something goes wrong, if someone dies from taking a tested pill, is the Government liable, the music festival, the medical practitioner? At Groovin' The Moo in Canberra, all participants were obliged to sign a waiver before having their pills tested. However, not all of these participants had legal capacity to sign this waiver. Many participants were underage and already under the influence of drugs and alcohol which effectively makes the waiver useless.

Another legal question is that of the police’s role. At Groovin' The Moo, there was an agreement that the Police would not target the pill testing tent or stay in close proximity to it. What about drug dealers and suppliers? It is entirely possible that they could exploit this exclusion zone in order to sell pills to festival goers.

The controversy behind pill testing is based on the fact that there is no evidence to show that it saves lives by persuading individuals to cease taking pills. It is expensive, inaccurate, and legally questionable.  And the point remains, pill takers know that they are taking a risk when they consume illicit substances and they do not need pill testing to tell them that!