19-year-old Alex Ross King died at the FOMO festival this year after ingesting MDMA pills and on Saturday her mother, Jennie Ross-King, was campaigning in support of pill testing at the popular Byron Bay music festival. Following the demo, Ms Ross-King told journalists: “I guess the disappointing part is that this (pill testing) has been 20 years in the making.…

Australia’s peak drug reform body has slammed the NSW government’s decision to ramp up the police presence at this weekend’s Splendour in the Grass music festival in Byron Bay. The Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation warned heavy-handed police, sniffer dogs and a continued ban on pill testing in NSW, could prove a potentially lethal cocktail. […]

A harm reduction campaigner and a criminologist told a NSW coroner on Friday the experience of being ordered to undress in front of police and accused of concealing drugs could cause long-lasting mental effects. The harm occurred regardless of whether the people were concealing drugs or not, researcher Peta Malins said. […]

Edith Cowan University psychologist Stephen Bright told the inquiry pill testing offered a way to counsel young people about illicit drug use. “The evidence we have is pill testing doesn’t give the green light or normalise drug use,” he said. “With one in 10 people having already used ecstasy, drug use is already normalised.” […]

A medical expert who helped draft the NSW government’s music festival guidelines has told an inquest Australia is “stuck in a war on drugs” and sniffer dogs at events are “unhelpful”, leading patrons to undergo riskier behaviours. St Vincent’s Hospital toxicology, pharmacology and addiction medicine specialist Jonathan Brett also said the nation was lagging behind other countries that have instituted…

David Caldicott, the emergency doctor and pill-testing advocate, described the practice as “unconscionable”. “It has no health benefit, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s got considerable mental health issues associated with it,” he said last week. “Colleagues of mine in the UK find it extraordinary that it is happening in a first-world country.” […]

We should expand trials of on-site drug checking services at festivals and outside these settings (for example, drop-in services at urban centres). Drug checking (or pill testing) services invite members of the public to anonymously submit drug samples for forensic analysis and then provide individualised feedback of results and counselling as appropriate. […]

Outside the court, mother Jennie Ross-King said she had a determination to pursue “every possible option for change” and urged NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian do the same.” Our state government needs to show the same courage as this group of parents have who have lost a daughter or a son, it needs to stop here,” she told reporters outside NSW…

“The use of police drug-detection dogs at festival settings is probably the strategy to be least used if your central goal is reducing harm and improving public health and safety. “Police use of drug detection dogs was associated with increased purchasing (of drugs) within festival grounds.” […]

On Wednesday, outside a NSW coronial hearing into six MDMA-related deaths at music festivals, Jennie Ross-King called on the state government to “show the same courage as these group of parents has, who have lost a daughter or a son”. “It needs to stop here,” she said. “I say this to the premier; premier, thank you for your sympathies. […]