Senior research fellow Dr Monica Barrett from the National Drug and Alcohol­ Research Centre says the current government attitude of ‘just say no’ isn’t working. “If pure MDMA with known dosage were available for recreational purposes, the need for a comprehensive monitoring system for novel drugs and emerging drug trends would be less urgent and it is likely that most…

Choking up, Mr Tam’s friend said they “would never touch MDMA again”. He said it was vital pill testing was available at festivals: “It’s stupid not to have pill testing. I just think how much one death has affected myself and everyone, if we can save one person then we’ve done our job. […]

The PTA and Dr Caldicott organised a pill testing trial at ACT’s Groovin’ The Moo in 2018. Dr Caldicott said pill testing was not about promoting the use of illicit drugs, rather a way of giving users information about the risk of taking them. “We demonstrate right in front of them – it works like a magic trick – showing…

“The idea of believing that saying to young people in possession of drugs ‘just say no’ is an effective message represents either a phenomenal misunderstanding of how the adolescent mind works, or just a lack of concern,” the emergency doctor and pill-testing advocate David Caldicott said this week. […]

“A drug testing pilot would have delivered an ineffective, expensive and harmful regime that would have hindered, not helped Australians struggling with addiction,” noted Associate Professor Adrian Reynolds, President of the Royal Australian College of Physician’s Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine, in a celebratory statement when the proposal was first dropped. […]

“So called recreational drug use will not magically disappear. In fact, in all likelihood, it will get a whole lot worse. Just saying don’t do it, we must all now agree, isn’t working. This is a health management issue. People are dying. I’m 100 per cent certain that if our son knew the risks, he wouldn’t have taken the steps…

In Ross-King’s case, counsel assisting the inquest Peggy Dwyer said, the presence of police at the festival appeared to be a direct cause for her decision to “double dose” or “double dropping”; taking more than one pill at once, something she said was common. Studies in Australia have shown that almost half of people who used ecstasy at a festival had…

Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame will preside over the two weeks of hearings. She said: “They could be any young people who go to music festivals and partake in drugs as many young people do. These are our young people … and we owe them a proper investigation of the circumstances in which they died.” […]

The roots of stigmatising language lie not just in fear but in judgements we make about other people. Many people view problem drug use as self-inflicted or an individual error of judgement. Addiction and dependency don’t develop randomly, key ingredients are needed to amplify the risk. Trauma, mental health problems, poverty and social disadvantage all contribute. […]

You want to make a real difference, then start at the top: obliterate anyone from the political class who tests positive for drugs, recreational or otherwise. Give the flick to anyone caught wrongly using entitlements. Give the publicly funded, house-owning, raise-getting, multiple mistake-making political class no opportunities for slip-ups because, quite frankly, they don’t deserve them. […]