First pill testing at event
Festival makes history
A festival on the Southern Downs will be Queensland’s first pill testing site, with organisers hoping to “avoid tragic consequences”.
Punters at this year’s Rabbits Eat Lettuce music festival over the Easter long weekend will be safer, educated and aware as they make history for being the first site to use pill testing in the state’s history.
At the festival’s 15-year anniversary, headlined by acts such as What So Not and Biianco, thousands will descend to southern Queensland’s Elbow Valley.
The move comes after the tragic deaths of two festival punters in 2019, with a coronial investigation determining both had lethal cocktails of drugs in their system when they died.
Former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk introduced the scheme in 2023, following the only other state where it is allowed, the ACT.
Pill Testing Australia is the volunteer organisation which provides discrete and anonymous sample-based analysis of drugs, and focuses on awareness, free agency and choice.
Both festival organisers, analysts and police are aware revellers will be taking drugs at the music festival, but are optimistic that with the new measures it will be safe and controlled.
Professor Malcolm McLeod from Pill Testing Australia said his team would do a great job testing substances at the festival and would find things people wouldn’t be expecting.
“It’s our aim to educate people about those drug uses and the risks associated with that and hopefully change a few minds about their use,” Professor McLeod said.
“People use drugs and we can’t ignore that fact, we might not like it but it happens, this is a method to reduce the potential harm of that drug use.”
The process for pill testing at festivals, including Rabbits Eat Lettuce, is simple and very discrete, which encourages the curious to test anonymously without Judgement.
There’s no big sign advertising where the drugs go, only placards with information on effects and dosage, tucked away in the pill testing site which is nestled away discreetly.
Testers will sign a form which notes the risks and the limitations of the testing process, then punters can enter where they can see the process in person.
“The chemist does the testing in front of the client, giving them the result directly, in the presence of a harm reduction worker,” one of the on-site drug testers said.
After a consultation about the findings, the reveller can decide whether to discard the drug discreetly or keep it.
The client keeps the drugs in their possession, as only a small scraped sample is tested.
The lead tester does not believe there is any correlation between the introduction of pill testing and an up spike in drug use, which is a common belief.
“If they have substances and they don’t come to pill testing they’re going to take them anyway, so I don’t think that has any legs,” Professor McLeod said.