Poll: Should Australian Music Festivals Implement Drug Testing?

[poledriver]

Poll: Should Australian Music Festivals Implement Drug Testing?

Drug use at Australian music festivals is back in the spotlight after the deaths of two young festival-goers — 25-year-old Sylvia Choi and 19-year-old Stefan Woodward — who both attended Stereosonic 2015, where many more drug-affected punters were treated by paramedics over the last two weeks.

With the continuing use of recreational drugs at music events, Music Feeds wants to know where you, the music-loving Aussie public, stand on the issue of implementing drug testing services at local festivals.

The tragic deaths and hospitalisations around Stereosonic have seen police, paramedics, doctors and drug experts share their views on festival drug use, with the suggestion of helping punters test the chemical makeup of their drugs raising some opposing views.

Police Assistant Commissioner Frank Mennilli has said Australia’s drug culture and music festival culture need to change. “There’s no such thing as safe drugs. You’re playing Russian roulette with your life,” he said after the death of Ms Choi.

However, ER Doctor and drug harm minimisation advocate Dr David Caldicott has told ABC‘s 7:30 program that a shipping container of forensic equipment has been successfully used at raves in the Swiss city of Zurich, to help punters test their drugs.

“Then in the 20 to 30 minutes they’re waiting for a result, [testers] engage with the consumer, let them know what’s going on… and also look at their habits and how they can stay safer,” Dr Caldicott said.

“They’ve already decided to use drugs and we need to be far more nuanced in our approach to illicit drugs than we currently are.”

Artists have joined the call too, with the likes of Melbourne MC Illy and Stereosonic main-stagers Peking Duk arguing for a rethink of drug safety measures at Aussie festivals.

“You’re talking about recreational drug users at a festival, not addicts, not dealers or criminals, except for the few hours when they have a pinger on them,” Illy told triple j‘s Hack. “There’s an environment at festivals where there are risks… if it’s going to make better informed decisions for these people then I think it’s something that should be encouraged.”

Meanwhile, those who argue against implementing drug testing have said the services are costly and aren’t 100 per cent accurate, while others like The Project‘s Steve Price have also suggested that drug testing would legitimise drug taking at concerts.

Festivals themselves have differing views as well, with Victoria’s Rainbow Serpent Festival hoping to implement drug testing and others like Big Pineapple Music Festival and Caloundra Music Festival telling Sunshine Coast Daily that drug testing isn’t necessary at festivals which don’t have a drug culture.

“I can’t see it being practical,”Caloundra Music Festival organiser Richie Eyles told the publication. “Testing people’s drugs is like saying ‘hey it’s okay to take drugs’.”

With all those conflicting views in mind, hit up the poll below and let us know where you stand on the issue of drug testing at Aussie festivals.

The traditional drug safety approach involving cops, sniffer dogs and heavier security isn’t working as well as authorities would have hoped for, so would drug testing help stop more punters from injuring themselves or dying at music festivals?


Read more at http://musicfeeds.com.au/features/p...s-implement-drug-testing/#lDeo4ukglBi7Vvqz.99

 

[neversickanymore]

Imo this is a no brainer. . Yes.

 

[spacejunk]

Yes.
Thanks for the link.

 

[poledriver]

Pill testing isn't a silver bullet to prevent drug deaths, but it is part of the solution

Recent deaths caused by ecstacy have restarted the debate about drug control. Now we need to keep talking.

Two apparent ecstasy-related deaths in as many weeks is unprecedented in Australia, as far as I am aware.

Ecstasy deaths are rare, but when they do occur they receive a great deal of media attention. They are usually linked to nightclubs, dance events and festivals – a part of youth culture that many older Australians do not understand well and involve drugs that weren't necessarily around when they were younger. As a result, they raise great community concern.

Two "camps" quickly emerge in the days after a death: the prohibition lobby, who demand that governments and police get tougher; and those who hold more of a "harm reduction" view, who usually suggest that "pill testing" is the way forward. The two sides bang heads for a couple of days, maybe a week, and then we just keep on as before until the next tragic death.

That is until last year. When a 19-year-old young woman died at a Sydney dance festival last November from an apparent drug overdose, the call to get tougher was louder than ever.
Since that time we have seen a greater police presence at dance festivals than ever before. The number of people charged with possession of illicit substances at these events has never been as high and yet, here we are, only a couple of months into the dance festival season and we already have two deaths.

Yes, we can get tougher, but from what we've seen over the past fortnight, it doesn't seem to have made any difference as to whether people take illicit substances or to have reduced the harm associated with that use.
So what about the other side of the argument: would pill testing help? While I support this strategy, I am worried that when promoting this potentially useful strategy we're promising something it can't necessarily deliver. It's being portrayed as a silver bullet to an extremely complex issue.

Pill testing (or "drug checking" as it is called in some parts of the world) would provide some limited information to users, usually about potentially dangerous adulterants that can be found in pills, tablets and powders. Different parts of the world conduct this strategy in different ways. Sometimes it is a simple reagent test, but others offer a much more thorough testing regime.

The whole concept is based on one of the key prevention messages we have around ecstasy (and other illicit drugs) – "you don't know what you're taking". Pill testing, therefore, allows the user to have a little more information about what it is that they're planning to use.

Unfortunately, the whole concept is based on the false assumption that if you do know what you're taking, it is safe – something that is absolutely untrue. As far as ecstasy is concerned, the substance users are looking for is MDMA. Test a pill and find out that it contains MDMA and many believe that this means that the pill is "safe". MDMA is not a safe drug and many of the deaths that have occurred across Europe this year have actually been due to MDMA overdose. Pill testing for adulterants would not necessarily have assisted in preventing those deaths.

It was pleasing to see the federal government acknowledge that we can't arrest our way out of the ice problem, and the same thing goes for ecstasy and related drug culture.
Tougher policing has certainly not resulted in less harm, as the past fortnight has made abundantly clear. Age-appropriate education based on evidence, not simply scare tactics, the development of a warning system about particularly dangerous substances from agencies that users are more likely to believe (police warnings are often ignored) and an agreed "code of conduct" for party promoters in this area are some areas that could be investigated.

The tragedy is that we only talk about this issue when we have a death. What we need is an ongoing dialogue between all parties (the dance festival and nightclub industry, government, police and clubbers themselves).
Hopefully pill testing is a part of that dialogue but let's not kid ourselves that just one strategy is going to mean we won't see these kind of deaths in the future.

Paul Dillon of director of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/pill-...of-the-solution-20151207-glh9ej#ixzz3tgPVyO6r

 

[poledriver]

Should Australian Music Festivals Implement Drug Testing?: The Poll Results

This week, a Music Feeds poll has been asking music-loving Aussies to have their say on whether or not local music festivals should implement drug testing services in an attempt to prevent drug-related injuries and deaths.

The poll, which posed the yes-or-no question ‘Should Australian Music Festivals Implement Drug Testing?’, has amassed over 10,000 votes in two days (10,164 to be exact), and with such an impressive response from readers, we’ve crunched the numbers. Here are the results:

83 per cent of responses to the poll are in favour of Australian festivals introducing drug testing procedures at their events, while the other 17 per cent of responses are against such measures.

The issue of possibly introducing drug testing at festivals is of course more complicated than a simple yes-or-no approach, but there is clearly an overwhelming interest in at least looking at the possibility of changing the way we approach drugs at music events.

Hundreds of Music Feeds readers have taken to Facebook to let us know why they are either for or against the idea of drug testing at festivals.

Facebook user Kristofferson Renick said that if drug testing was implemented, he would want promoters or ticket-holders to cover the extra cost. “If my tax dollars cover this in any way I won’t be happy,” he said, to which user Bec Plumpton asked, “Would you rather your tax dollars cover people’s hospital admissions then?”

User Cosimo Laface took a hard line on drug-taking, saying, “If your [sic] stupid enough to take any substance at any function, you play Russian roulette,” echoing a statement made by Police Assistant Commissioner Frank Mennilli.

Erin Grace thinks differently, saying, “Of course there should be free drug testing at music festivals. It could save lives and prevent overdoses, illness and horrible experiences. Anyone who says ‘no’ to drug testing is just ignorant.”

For us at Music Feeds, the results of our poll aren’t all that surprising, given the renewed push for a rethink of drug policies following the deaths of 25-year-old Sylvia Choi and 19-year-old Stefan Woodward at Stereosonic over the last few weeks.

Artists like Illy and Peking Duk have both endorsed the idea of drug testing, while ER Doctor and drug harm minimisation advocate Dr David Caldicott has called for the government to re-think its entire anti-drugs strategy.

With this renewed push comes further questions about what would need to be done for Australian festivals to implement drug testing, as well as questions surrounding its effectiveness, cost and legal implications.

Music Feeds is going to be looking at these questions and more as the issue continues to play out.


Read more at http://musicfeeds.com.au/features/a...rug-testing-poll-results/#J8Rkm4yJHJ3whmOg.99