ABC program The 7:30 Report has brought to the table a discussion about enabling pill-testing at clubs and festivals in Australia following the deaths of two party-goers in the last three months.

The nine-minute segment included doctors Dr Alex Wodak and Dr David Caldicott, drug reform advocates, DJ Paul Mac, a Police Drug Squad Commander and even a ‘music festival attendee’ to delve into the risks of drug taking, solutions and the current strategies in place.

From the start, both Doctors outlined that pill-testing was a positive option to reduce harm, something that countries overseas including Switzerland have been trialling successfully.

DJ Paul Mac stated that drug taking and dance music had been happening for decades and “Despite sniffer dogs, despite everything, there is no evidence that people are taking less drugs at festivals” possibly indicating that the NSW Police are not taking taking a progressive measure in furthering their efforts to protect people.

The ‘music festival attendee’ gave insight into one of the ways of preparing for the day and signalling the use of drug detection dogs;

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt. It’s unfeasible. Like, they’ll either just eat them before they go or sort of as they’re walking in. Everyone talks about it a lot before they get there. And there tends to be a little bit of preparation, just depending on whether or not you’re taking stuff in for later in the day or if you do have a joint or two or whatever. So, like, a lot of the time people I know and myself would probably send one or two people in before us without anything and then get them to send out a text, report back sort of thing.”

Sadly Police Squad Commander Tony Cooke remained hardline on the subject of drugs and their illegal stance, almost opting for ‘results’ as evidence and seemingly forgetting that legal things like alcohol and cigarettes also have fatal results;

“You know, these drugs are dangerous. There’s nothing recreational about them and they kill people and we see those results.”

Without taking into account that more people are consuming and being caught with drugs without comparable spikes in health issues on-ground at clubs and festivals.

Probably the most interesting comment came from David Caldicott of the Act Investigation of Novel Substances Group who pointed out that a dated campaign on drugs has worn off;

“The young people who are consuming these products don’t really care for a message that seems to be based in the 1950s. You consume alcohol at an extraordinary rate. The idea of a drug-free Australia is ludicrous. And so what we need to do is rather than concentrate on making sure that people don’t consume drugs, that they don’t get hurt when they choose erroneously to consume drugs.”

A by-product of testing is thought to then push the pressure back up the supply line and to the manufacturers to make the product better without contaminants according to Dr Wodak;

What happens is when people find out they’ve bought some dangerous drugs, they go back to the dealer and demand their money back. And that message gets transferred up the line and so it puts pressure on the people who are manufacturing these products to make sure that they’re manufacturing less dangerous rather than more dangerous chemicals.

Again, Police Drug Squad Commander Tony Cooke showed no signs of letting up, signing off with;

It’s not an approach we will take. You know, drugs are illegal. The bottom line is it’s illegal and we will enforce the law.

All in all an interesting state to see it being discussed on ABC and hopefully a better understanding of the situation from all sides of the argument.

What should happen next?

Watch the full segment here.