• Gladys Berejiklian must listen to Adriana Buccianti after Defqon.1 deaths

    It’s time the Berejiklian Government listened to grieving families, former police and experts all calling for more effective action on drugs-related deaths at festivals. Specifically, it’s time they entered the real world by shifting from a tin-eared approach of criminalisation on drugs to one of harm minimisation. […]

  • Defqon.1 deaths: sniffer dogs don’t deter revellers from drug use, researchers find

    The presence of sniffer dogs at music festivals is almost completely ineffective at persuading revellers to abstain from drugs and could place them at greater risk of harm, according to new research that comes after the death of two people at a Sydney dance music festival. While the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, faces criticism for again ruling out…

  • When Australia held its first legal pill testing trial at Groovin The Moo festival in May, it exposed lethal drugs

    The deaths of Joseph Pham, 23 and a 21-year-old woman from Melbourne has reignited calls for festivals to offer pill testing for harm reduction as the government’s “just say no” approach was slammed. Hundreds have taken to social media using the hashtag #timetotest calling on the government to change its strategy, and enforce pill testing, rather than just banning festivals.…

  • We need to talk about drugs in a radically different way

    It is now time for Australia to have a conversation not about how we respond to drugs, but how we respond to people. In Canberra we are leading the way on this critically important change. […]

  • Festival drug deaths make the case for pill testing

    It is not about giving a drug the stamp of legitimacy; it is about creating an opportunity for a crucial conversation on risk at the right place and the right time. […]

  • The simple question MPs opposed to pill testing should ask themselves

    How long can political leaders continue to delude themselves that their stern warnings prevent young people from taking drugs at youth music events? How long can they continue to claim, against the evidence, that saturation policing assisted by sniffer dogs substantially reduces the availability of drugs at these events? […]

  • Doctors’ body call for pill testing trial

    The nation’s peak medical body has called for pill testing trials after two young people died of suspected drug overdoses at a major Australian music festival. Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone said law enforcement couldn’t be the only approach to solving the illicit drug issue. Testing could do more than verify whether illicit substances were in festival attendees’ pills, he said.…

  • Two people die after attending Sydney’s defqon.1 festival

    Harm minimisation group Sniff Off said it was “disgusting” Ms Berejiklian was “using the tragic loss of these two young lives to push her absurd ‘just don’t do drugs’ message, when it is the NSW government’s extreme overpolicing measures that allowed deaths like this to occur in the first place”. “Installing police with drug dogs at festivals only causes people…

  • Report into legal cannabis short-sighted

    Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm has described the decision by a Senate committee to recommend against passage of his Bill to remove Commonwealth restrictions on recreational cannabis as short-sighted. “An estimated 35 per cent of Australians admit to having used marijuana at some point in their lives, so it is pretty clear the policy of prohibition is not working. […]

  • Splendour in the Grass: Greens push for ‘police discretion’ as drug-takers avoid criminal record

    New South Wales Greens MP David Shoebridge said targeting individual drug users at festivals is a waste of police resources which would have no meaningful impact on drug supply. “What we should be doing is having the police cooperating with festival organisers and having pill testing and we could be saving people’s lives.” […]