PM - Calls for Drug Checking Labs at Music Festivals 30/11/2015

PM - Calls for drug checking labs at music festivals 30/11/2015

Radio TV Shop News Sport Local Children Science Environment more Topics help

Listen to Monday's program

00:00 00:00

PM covers a broad spectrum of issues relevant to all sections of Australia's geographically and culturally diverse community. WITH TIM PALMER .

Monday to Friday from 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio and 5:00pm on Radio National. HOME ABOUT ARCHIVES CONTACT

From the 1945 archive:

Harry Truman announces the dropping of the atomic bomb, 6th August, 1945 Calls for drug checking labs at music festivals

Sarah Farnsworth reported this story on Monday, November 30, 2015 18:50:00

TIM PALMER: The tragic death of a young woman at a Sydney music festival at the weekend has reignited a push for drug | MP3 DOWNLOAD checking laboratories at public venues. PREVIOUS FRIDAY MP3 PREVIOUS THURSDAY MP3 The 25-year-old fell ill at the Stereosonic festival and later died PREVIOUS WEDNESDAY MP3 from what police believe was a drug overdose. PREVIOUS TUESDAY MP3 MORE TO ADD? ALERT US » PREVIOUS MONDAY MP3 PRINT THIS STORY » One emergency department consultant has called for Australia to take a less punitive approach to drug use and follow in Europe's EMAIL A FRIEND » footsteps to reduce the risk.

SHARE ON FACEBOOK » Sarah Farnsworth reports.

SHARE ON TWITTER » SARAH FARNSWORTH: In 11 days, thousands will flock to the SHARE ON REDDIT » grassy paddocks surrounding the Meredith amphitheatre 100 kilometres west of Melbourne, as the festival season kicks off in Victoria, and the three day Meredith Music Festival marks its Silver Subscribe to our Daily Jubilee. or Story podcast. Images Those familiar with the festival scene right across the country know some festival goers will be using illicit drugs. ALL ABOUT PODCASTING . Click an image to enlarge MILES HUNT: Drugs are part of human life.

SARAH FARNSWORTH: Sydney lawyer Miles Hunt is the director AM of the drug law reform and harm-minimisation organisation

PM UnHarm.

THE WORLD TODAY MILES HUNT: Particularly for young people, it's a stage in life CORRESPONDENTS REPORT where people experiment and drugs are part of that. And if you've got an event in which young people are coming together in nature, Program Websites listening to music, it's inevitable that they're going to take drugs.

SARAH FARNSWORTH: On the weekend, at Sydney Olympic Park, a 25-year-old woman fell ill and died at the Stereosonic festival.

Police believe it was the result of a heady cocktail of ecstasy and

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4362861.htm[1/12/2015 9:58:07 AM] PM - Calls for drug checking labs at music festivals 30/11/2015

MDMA.

Canberra based emergency department consultant Professor David Caldicott is leading a campaign to introduce drug checking laboratories at festivals to minimise the risks.

DAVID CALDICOTT: So what we do is we attend a music festival and we bring really quite state of the art equipment with us and offer the opportunity for consumers and patrons to submit their samples for assessment, and also take the chance, while we're waiting for the result, to chat to them about their behaviour, how they might want to consider modifying it.

SARAH FARNSWORTH: In a way, you're expecting people to line up and hand over a pill or powder and admit that they've purchased the drug.

DAVID CALDICOTT: This is not a group of people who are particularly shy about doing that. The problem is, is that the message that we provide in Australia to primary school kids, that always using drugs is always bad, is great - for primary school kids. It's not a message, quite obviously, that people who are attending these events are paying any attention to.

SARAH FARNSWORTH: How much evidence is there to suggest that people knowing what they're about to take and the purity of what they're about to take will stop them from taking it?

DAVID CALDICOTT: We surveyed over 5,000 patrons at the Enchanted Forest raves 10 years ago, and in our series we identified as many as two-thirds of people would change their behaviour if they identified, for example, that their pill contained something other than MDMA.

SARAH FARNSWORTH: Miles Hunt says the current way police tackle drug use at festivals doesn't work.

MILES HUNT: All you're getting is hundreds of young people after every festival before the courts charged with possession of a small quantity of drugs, riskier behaviour, where people are taking drugs in higher doses to avoid detection of sniffer dogs, and generally a bad result for everyone.

SARAH FARNSWORTH: Dr Stephen Parnis is the vice president of the Australian Medical Association, and says more research is needed into whether knowing the composition of drugs does help reduce deaths.

STEPHEN PARNIS: In this area there is no magic bullet, I have to say. The evidence is not definitive here that laboratories on the site of music festivals necessarily result in a reduction in harm.

TIM PALMER: The AMA's Dr Stephen Parnis ending Sarah Farnsworth's report.

ABC Home About the ABC Careers ABC Services ABC Contacts

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4362861.htm[1/12/2015 9:58:07 AM] PM - Calls for drug checking labs at music festivals 30/11/2015

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4362861.htm[1/12/2015 9:58:07 AM]