Aus - Pill testing gets green light for Canberra festival Spilt Milk

[poledriver]

Pill testing gets green light for Canberra festival Spilt Milk

Canberra's Spilt Milk music festival will be the first in Australia to offer pill testing, after the ACT government earlier this year rejected a drug-checking trial at Groovin The Moo.

ACT health minister Meegan Fitzharris on Friday revealed the territory government had given permission to the Safety Testing and Advisory Service at Festivals and Events (STA-Safe) to test illicit drugs at the November 25 festival "to keep people safe".

"We need to find the right balance between letting young people know it's illegal to take drugs, they can be very harmful, but also being realistic because we've seen deaths at festivals, five in 2015 alone, so if that helps to keep people safe, it's worth doing," Ms Fitzharris said.

"This will be the first time we've had something like this in a festival in Australia."

Led by Harm Reduction Australia, the Australian Drug Observatory, Noffs Foundation, DanceWize and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, health professionals in the event's medical area will scrape off a small amount of the drug and analyse it.

Punters will be told exactly what the pill contains and have the chance to dump it in an amnesty bin.

The amnesty bins will contain bleach to destroy the discarded drugs.

Regardless of the outcome of the test, festivalgoers will be warned about the health risks of illegal drugs by trained drug counsellors.

Pill testing already occurs at festivals in New Zealand, Europe and South America.

Analysis of drugs at New Zealand festivals last year showed one in five pills was a completely different drug to what the punter thought they'd bought and one in 10 samples had extra ingredients.

In April, a government spokesman said it was unlikely a pill testing trial would happen in Canberra in 2017, after the Groovin The Moo trial was knocked back for not being "well formed" enough.

However a working group has been looking at how the trial would work in Canberra since June.

ACT Policing have been a part of the group since "day one" and supported a harm minimisation approach, Ms Fitzharris said.

Pill testing does not breach any ACT laws and Ms Fitzharris said those analysing the drugs will take precautions not to inadvertently break them.

"We don't need to have a legislative change in order to enable this to happen and there are a couple of features about the proposal that contribute to that, principally that the person testing the actual pill will never be in possession of that pill, the person wanting it tested will put it into the machine, and it will be analysed through the machine," Ms Fitzharris said.

The trial will be closely monitored, with STA-Safe to report back on the number of people who used the service, how many people discarded their drugs and the chemical content of each sample.

The move will be welcomed by the ACT Greens, who last week tabled a 1000-signature petition in the Legislative Assembly calling on the government to allow pill testing at the festival.

However the Canberra Liberals are likely to continue their staunch opposition to the idea.

Legal affairs' spokesman Jeremy Hanson said a pill testing trial would "encourage drug use".

http://www.smh.com.au/national/heal...erra-festival-spilt-milk-20170921-gylpbe.html

 

[poledriver]

Finally, a step in the right direction. Now we need this to be happening at all the biggest festivals and raves/dance parties in NSW and VIC and other states as well.

 

[poledriver]

Spilt Milk pulls out of Australia's first pill testing trial

The first trial of pill testing at an Australian music festival will no longer go ahead after Spilt Milk organisers pulled out with six weeks to go.

The trial was approved by the ACT Government in late September following months of negotiations with the Safety Testing Advisory Service at Festivals and Events (STA-SAFE).

Ryan Phillips, Director of Kicks Entertainment, told Hack STA-SAFE had not provided the relevant "documentation" for the festival, which is to be held on November 25.

STA-SAFE denies this was the case and says Spilt Milk's announcement was a surprise.

"It comes down to STA-SAFE," Ryan said.

"They need more time to provide documentation, insurance, legal framework to operate on federal land."

Spilt Milk needed a festival licence from the National Capital Authority, a body that manages planning and development of Commonwealth land in Canberra.

In August, ACT Shadow Minister for Health, Vicki Dunne, told Parliament:

"The Spilt Milk festival is at Commonwealth Park, which is on Commonwealth land. Pill testing will need Commonwealth Government approval, and I doubt that they will give it.

"[Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris] can feel free to blame the Commonwealth whilst being silently thankful that she did not have to deliver on pill testing.

Ryan said he could not put the rest of the festival at risk by waiting any longer.

Asked why he had announced pill testing if he couldn't get it sorted in time, Ryan said the initial announcement had come from the ACT Government.

"We came from behind them, following their lead," he said.

"We're advocating for it."

He said he still wanted pill testing to happen at Spilt Milk in 2018.

"We're hugely disappointed, but I'd be more disappointed if we do it wrong and have a trial that's not successful and this doesn't make a difference in Australia.

It's not our fault: STA-SAFE

STA-SAFE is a consortium of pill testing advocates including Harm Reduction Australia, Students for Sensible Drug Policies, and Dr David Caldicott, from the Australian Drug Observatory.

Dr Caldicott denied STA-SAFE had been slow with providing documents to Spilt Milk or any other organisation or agency.

"As far as I know we provided all documentation necessary," he told Hack today.

"We haven't been consulted, we really don't know what this is all about.

"If he would like to contact us we would be delighted."

We still support pill testing: ACT Gov

Acting Minister for Health Shane Rattenbury told ABC Radio Canberra this morning he'd heard rumours and was concerned that pill testing wouldn't go ahead.

However, he said the Government had "made all the right steps".

"The ACT Government has approved pill testing and believes that's it's a valuable harm minimisation measure," he said.

"We've got a consortium called STA-SAFE, made up of a medical team, with all the right skills, who are willing to undertake it.

"We put the arrangements in place with various such government authorities such as as ACT policing."

He said ACT police had been heavily involved in discussion about government approval and "recognise it as a harm minimisation strategy".

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/progr...irst-pill-testing-trial/9044724?sf121317877=1

 

[Mafioso]

This documentary is about the same thing.

I think it's definitely a step in the right direction. Clearly people are not deterred by the legal status of a drug and neither are drug dealers. I think it's been proven time and time again that prohibition facilitates an unregulated black market in which fakes are easily passed off as real, leading to added and unforeseen dangers.

 

[spacejunk]

i think the proposed testing was going to use GC:MS or something though, not just reagent testing.

so pissed off this got shit-canned. fucking liberal party arseholes

 

[Jabberwocky]

Finally, a step in the right direction. Now we need this to be happening at all the biggest festivals and raves/dance parties in NSW and VIC and other states as well.

I still remember when it was legal in Canberra to possess 4 marijuana plants.

 

[Mafioso]

i think the proposed testing was going to use GC:MS or something though, not just reagent testing.

so pissed off this got shit-canned. fucking liberal party arseholes

What's GC:MS? The guys that walk around testing peoples pills at the festival are on a very limited budget, but they do show an organization that has a booth. It doesn't mention how they do the testing, but I'm guessing it's a little more advanced, but not sure.

 

[poledriver]

yeah it's some full spectrum analysis shit I think. Expensive equipment I believe.

 

[Wiserthanearlier]

So sad this didnt go ahead... we so, so need this in Australia

 

[S.J.B.]

What's GC:MS?.

It stands for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Essentially, it's a machine that can be used to unambiguously determine what drugs are present in a sample, and sometimes their proportions in the sample as well.