NSW Government Finally Agrees to Trial Pill Testing at Music Festivals

The Minns government announced on Thursday, 19 December, that it “will commence a music festival-based pill testing trial in early 2025”, with the aim of reducing “risks and harms associated with illicit drug use”, and with this, the decade-long refusal of state politicians to implement this lifesaving initiative has come to an end.

NSW premier Chris Minns should be congratulated in taking the bold move to implement a harm reduction intervention that, while no silver bullet, does allow people who plan to take illicit substances to test them beforehand to ascertain their chemical ingredients, as well as potency.

The NSW Drug Summit appears to have directly resulted in this outcome as event co-chairs Carmel Tebbutt and John Brogden provided the government with interim advice, recommending music festival pill testing, or drug checking, be rolled out with summer fast approaching.

The ABC reports that the government will permit about 10 to 12 festivals to trial pill testing. And punters will be able have their drugs checked. Although they’ll also be required to sign a waiver after having their substances tested.

NSW Greens harm reduction spokesperson Cate Faehrmann welcomed the news on Thursday. But she further asserted that services should commence on Boxing Day, as that’s when the “festival blitz” begins, and she too raises concerns over whether festivalgoers will still be greeted by walls of blue bodies accompanied by drug dogs and the possibility of having to undergo a strip search on entry.

Kicking and screaming

The campaign for pill testing took a national hold in late 2015, following six drug-related deaths at festivals over a 13 month period, and then NSW premier Mike Baird and police minister Troy Grant shot down calls for lifesaving pill testing, which set the tone for all administrations until now.

The 2018/19 summer festival season then saw five young people die in drug-related circumstances at NSW festivals, and this saw the campaign for pill testing in this state heighten, while a further key goal emerged from the inquiry responses to these deaths, which was drug decriminalisation.

The Minns government has only shown aversion to decriminalisation, which involves the removal of criminal sanctions against the offences of drug possession and use.

Drug decriminalisation has been operating in the Australian Capital Territory since late October 2023 and no issues have been reported.

Instead of decriminalisation, NSW Labor implemented the Early Drug Detection Initiative (EDDI) last February.

The EDDI provides NSW police with the discretion to issue up to two fines in respect of an individual being caught with a personal amount of an illegal drug on them, prior to arrest being required on third breach. And the outcomes of this Coalition-devised policy have been dismal in the extreme.

“They’ve got discretion at the moment about how they apply it,” Minns explained in regard to the EDDI on Thursday, “but drugs remain illegal in NSW, and that will be the case as a result of this change.”

“And I don’t want to send out that message, because this is not the message from the government, that drugs will be legalised at music festivals. They will not be,” the premier told the press. “You will be subject to the law as it applies today, tomorrow, in a years’ time or in two years’ time.”

Drug dogs and strip searches

The 12 month trial has been provided with $1 million in funding. Festivalgoers will be able to have their drugs tested with laboratory-grade equipment, while NSW police will be advised not to pounce on those using the services, as they’re leaving the site.

As Minns explained normal drug laws will apply. Yet, unbeknown to many, that means NSW police do have the discretion to issue $400 on-the-spot fines for drug possession at festivals, and this has been the case since 25 January 2019. So, any personal possession arrests at festivals made after that time need not have been.

The ABC further mentioned that NSW authorities had raised traveling to festivals in regard to enforcing drug laws.

In terms of sniffer dogs and tents to carry out strip searches, Faehrmann stressed that reform is too needed, as the desire to avoid dogs and invasive searches has caused multiple punters to consume excessive amounts of drugs at once to avoid detention, which has led to hospitalisations and even death.

Indeed, the provision of potentially lifesaving pill testing inside a festival would appear somewhat redundant if festivalgoers were made to run the gauntlet of dogs and police that the mere sight of has resulted in drug overdoses and deaths in the past.

Urgency around implementation

In a statement on Thursday, Faehrmann further added that NSW health minister Heath Ryan has suggested the trials could be up and running by February.

However, she warns that the upcoming period over December/January is peak for festivals and of late, there has been the rising issue around deadly synthetic opioids being cut with all types of drugs whether they be pills or powders.

“With festivals like Lost Paradise, Field Day and Spaced Out in Byron Bay taking place in late December and early January, along with New Years Eve and the holidays, most of the larger summer festivals will have concluded by early February,” said the NSW Greens drug law reform spokesperson.

NSW is the second jurisdiction to be trialling drug checking services in 2025, with Victoria having announced it will be last June.

The ACT commenced trialling pill testing in 2018, and it opened a permanent fixed drug checking site in July 2022. Trialling of drug checking commenced in Queensland last April. And Faehrmann points out that NSW is the only jurisdiction set to be pill testing next year without its own fixed site.

According to Faehrmann, the health minister “has received proposals by experienced pill testing services ready to set up” within days, and as, “they’re operating in other states… it’s not that hard to get their services in NSW at the time when they’re needed the most”.

And “to make music festivals even safer the Minns government must match this trial with ditching the dogs and strip searches at music festivals”, the Greens MLC concluded.