Pill Testing Motion
Ms WEBB (Nelson) – Mr Acting President, I welcome the motion presented by the member for Murchison on the issue of pill testing at festivals and music events in Tasmania. Given the member’s experience as a healthcare professional in this state, I appreciate her suitability for raising this issue. I recognise the member for Murchison and other members have spoken at great length to it already. I particularly wish to speak in support of a number of points within the member’s motion.
This motion acknowledges an achievable and evidence-based health service focused on harm minimisation in the complex area of drug use in the community. Each year, young Australian men and women require treatment in hospital or, in fact, lose their lives as a result of drug taking at festivals across Australia, and each year the chorus of voices calling for greater action grows.
These are not only the voices of grieving family members – although we should be listening to them. They are the voices of a whole range of others who question whether more could be done. It includes medical bodies like the Australian Medical Association, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, among many others, many of which are listed in the motion. These are voices that cannot, and should not, be ignored. We know what unites them: it is the goal of stopping young people dying at places of celebration.
To date, in this country we have focused primarily on a criminal justice law enforcement response in relation to the presence of drugs at music festivals. A law enforcement response does have some impact in removing drugs from these events. However, no single approach can achieve a perfect outcome, and the law enforcement approach itself holds some dangers. For example, it has been suggested that the presence of police and sniffer dogs can precipitate the dangerous, rapid ingestion of drugs by young people to avoid being caught. They see the police, panic and take all their drugs at once, which is highly dangerous and has resulted in medical emergencies.
Even given this unintended, unsafe impact, few would argue that we should cease our law enforcement efforts and responses. However, we must recognise that the law enforcement response is failing to fully protect our young people from harm. We are faced with a choice: stick to the same methods, the same level of success and accept the injuries and deaths that occur, or put in place additional strategies to complement the existing approach and stop some young lives being lost unnecessarily. Today, the member for Murchison has prompted us to consider just such a strategy.
Pill testing does not promise to be a complete solution either. However, we know there is growing evidence nationally and internationally that pill testing is being used successfully as a harm reduction strategy. It is saving lives. Most recently in our own region, we have seen it introduced in New Zealand as a response alongside law enforcement. I suggest that those who value a tough on drugs approach should welcome the addition of pill testing with open arms as a further measure – alongside police presence and sniffer dogs – to effectively get more drugs out of the hands of young people. This is precisely what the evidence tells us is achieved by implementing pill testing sites at festivals. Up to two-thirds of young people using the service dispose of their drugs.
Far from being a soft option, the addition of this measure would be a demonstration of a strong, proactive approach to combat the impact and harm caused by drugs in our community, which is why, I believe, the police forces of many other jurisdictions have been prepared to work with the implementation of pill testing. They see it as a complement to their work.
I would go so far as to suggest that given the evidence we have as to the efficacy of pill testing in reducing drug taking by festival patrons and promoting more considered choices, to neglect to at least explore the option or trial an option in our jurisdiction demonstrates an unacceptably soft on drugs approach from our state Government and opposition.
The Australian Government has acknowledged the importance of harm reduction because it forms one of the three pillars of the National Drug Strategy. In already funding safer injecting practices and education programs about illicit drug use, the Government is demonstrating that it understands the important role of harm reduction and its willingness to use a health approach to combat the impact of drug use.
Practices such as safer injecting spaces and needle exchanges are well accepted, and we can see a significant and growing evidence-base that positions pill testing, similarly, as an effective tool to reduce harm and protect lives.
Evidence on pill testing points to a range of potential benefits, from changing the behaviour of first-time users to providing young people with personal, one-to-one discussions with qualified health professionals; from capturing long-term data on what substances are present in drugs, even to providing an early warning system at festivals if a dangerous substance is detected.
Ultimately, though, we have the potential to save lives. In a media article in the Advocate, the president of the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Medical Association, which supports pill testing, is quoted as saying –
While we don’t condone the use of recreational drugs, if pill testing can save lives of young people about to engage in risky drug taking behaviour, then it will have served its purpose.
This is an important point. None of those calling for this approach is endorsing drug use or saying it is safe in any way. They are simply acknowledging that more should, and can, be done to try to save the lives of Tasmanian young people.
Pill testing does not claim to provide a safe way to take drugs, such as the member for Launceston asserted, rather it guarantees that a conversation will occur that focuses specifically on the fact that illicit drug use is unsafe and it will provide an appropriate opportunity to choose not to engage in it.
The reality is that young people from all backgrounds do engage in risky drug taking. In our current culture, music festivals are a particular environment in which that occurs. It is normalised. It is socialised as normal for many young people. I note that the member for Launceston has concerns about normalisation. I am afraid to tell her that this horse has bolted and the zero-tolerance approach we have had in place has failed as a single measure to combat it.
For many young people intending to take drugs at a music festival, the personal encounter with a trained health professional in a pill testing tent is likely to be the only time they are given one-to-one medical advice on the dangers of drug taking. They receive clear information on the dangers associated with drug taking, encouragement to dispose of their drugs – regardless of the result of the testing – and a safe disposal method.
This mechanism has particular value as an antidote to peer pressure that is often felt by young people in relation to drug taking at these events. The opportunity to present at a pill testing tent, go through the process and have a face-saving way of choosing to not take drugs is especially helpful to those young people who may have felt pressured towards taking drugs but unsure or unhappy about doing so.
Information is also provided on what to do in the case of an emergency in relation to drug taking, which could have the additional benefit of equipping young people, more broadly, to respond promptly and effectively in the future to save the lives of their friends.
Some people get caught up with focusing on the specific aspect of this measure – that is, the testing process itself. This narrow focus commonly descends into arguments about what can and cannot be tested for purity or not purity – and is often accompanied by the incorrect assertion that a testing process will in some way issue a drug with a stamp of approval. This is entirely false and it misunderstands the sophistication of the measure as a total package.
It is the combination of a face-to-face interaction with a health professional personally delivering education and information, the provision of specific medical advice as to the risks of drug taking across the board, information about the likely ingredients in the drug itself and the opportunity – without punishment or embarrassment – to dispose of the drug safely. That total package results in what has been proven to be an effective intervention.
The people doing the testing do not need to know whether the person has consumed alcohol, what medications they may be taking or any other circumstances of that young person’s life. The fact of the matter is they are simply testing the drug, providing information and in no cases will they be telling the young person that it is safe to take that drug. They will not need personal information provided by the young person because they will not be issuing any kind of endorsement of safety.
Let us be clear, pill testing provides a health service to young people that have an active intention to take drugs. They have the intention and they have the drugs that they intend to take. That is the baseline from which we are working here. They have drugs and they will be taking them. Even with the limitations on the testing aspect, that being only one aspect of the process, successfully influencing any of these young people to alter their intention and make a different choice in relation to their drug taking is an improvement on our baseline. It is potentially a lifesaving one among the people accessing this service.
From that baseline of guaranteed drug taking and guaranteed risk of harm, we move to some degree of lessening of that intent to take drugs and ultimately fewer drugs being consumed – up to two-thirds on some evidence. The worst-case scenario is that someone goes through the pill testing process and chooses to do exactly what they were going to do otherwise – take drugs. Pill testing has further potential to save lives, not only of those who may present to the tent for testing but of others in attendance at the festival. If a lethal substance is detected, festival organisers are notified and a general warning to festival-goers is issued about the presence of contaminated or dangerous drugs, thereby providing many more young people with a prompt to not consume their drugs, potentially saving further lives and medical emergencies.
I agree with the points made by the member for Mersey about the presence of the pill testing tent being a public health message in itself and having a positive impact ultimately on the people who observe it, whether they engage in that or not.
To sum up the key facts I see on pill testing: Pill testing decreases drug use with evidence indicating up to two-thirds of young people who engage in the service choose to dispose of their drugs as a result of the engagement. Pill testing does not endorse drug use. It specifically discourages it in a one-to-one interaction with a trained health professional. Pill testing does not ever say drugs are safe. It always advises drugs are harmful, provides clear education about the risks involved and advice always not to take the drugs. Pill testing provides young people with a supported opportunity to choose not to take drugs. Pill testing removes drugs from the festival environment safely. Pill testing educates and equips young people to respond better to emergency situations with their peers. Pill testing can occur alongside and can complement a criminal justice response. It complements a tough on drugs approach. Pill testing takes nothing away from our current approach, but offers a great deal in additional opportunities to reduce harm.
In reviewing the evidence related to pill testing I am convinced it has merit as an effective harm reduction measure in the first instance and would contribute as an education and protective measure more generally. I do not think any of the arguments against it outweigh its apparent value; many of them are found to be ill-informed assertions, ill-formed fears or myths readily disproved. Many matters raised are not even relevant to the issue at hand, but rather scaremongering distractions about other illicit substances and the like. Many of the matters and questions raised here today would be clarified and codified in a rigorous process of a planned trial. On this matter, I find the views expressed by a substantial range of professional health bodies, academics and criminology professionals to be evidence-based and compelling. Coupled with the growing evidence base and the experience we have to draw on from implementation in other jurisdiction, I do not see credible evidence of any additional risk posed by this measure, nor that it is likely to result in unintended consequences.
Those arguing against this measure do so not on evidence or fact, but on political expediency, stubborn ideology or fears born of ignorance, none of which should stand in the way of saving young lives. I echo the sentiments of the member for Mersey – we should be stepping up and leading to engage with a trial and contribute to a local evidence base would be a salutatory effort for Tasmania. Failure to act now, to investigate the introduction of this health measure as part of our suite of responses to drug use, would henceforth make us culpable in any drug-related injuries or deaths at Tasmanian music festivals.
As a parent who has raised one child through their teenage years and has four more children in the family on the cusp of being teenagers, I, for one, never want to face the parents of a young person who has died as a result of drugs at a Tasmanian festival and have to explain to them that there was more we could have done to save their child but we did not act. I wholeheartedly support this motion.
More parliamentary speeches by Hon Meg Webb MLC
