The NSW Government is facing further calls for a free pill testing service after two Sydney music festival-goers died on September 30.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Police said they were waiting for autopsy reports amid speculation the two men aged in their 20s died after taking illicit drugs.
A NSW Government spokesperson said the loss of any life from illicit drug use was "deeply concerning".
"We made a commitment at the last election to hold a drug summit and we will deliver on this," the spokesperson said.
But Harm Reduction Australia president Gino Vumbaca said it was "beyond frustrating" that there had been no action from the government, with an offer on the table to run a free pill testing trial for the past five years.
He said by the time the government went through the process of holding a drug summit it could take two or three years for any real change.
"It was the first weekend of the music festival season and we've got 20 people taken to hospital and two are dead - what are they waiting for?
"I've got no problem with the drug summit but we're not allowed to do anything until it's concluded? It is crazy," he said.
In 2019 the government rejected a recommendation for an urgent pill testing trial following a coronial inquest into the deaths of six festival-goers between December 2017 and January 2019.
'Nobody really knows what's in there'
Mr Vumbaca spent time with Jen Ross-King, whose daughter Alex was part of the coronial inquest, on October 2.
"[Ms Ross-King] was visibly upset today as I'm sure a lot of parents, families and friends who have lost people at festivals are," Mr Vumbaca said.
"She knows we can't guarantee that we can stop this but we can certainly reduce the likelihood of it happening."
IN OTHER NEWS:
Drug checking services have been in place in the ACT since July 2022 and are set to be introduced in Queensland.
Half of the drugs checked by the ACT's service were found to contain unexpected substances and more than 10 per cent were binned after participants found out what was in them, an evaluation found.
In Victoria state coroners have recommended four times the government introduce pill testing, most recently as September 2023, without any commitment despite the backing of music festivals.
Mr Vumbaca said the pill testing service also gave consumers information about potential harms amid a "completely uninformed market".
"There's just no information about what they're going to take and even the people they buy it from - it's passed through so many hands and nobody really knows what's in there," he said.
"You can live in an ideal world where you can say no one should take drugs and that'll happen, or you live in the real world where we accept that people do use drugs.
"And what we're trying to stop is what happened on the weekend."
The two men who died were among 53,000 people who went to the Knockout Outdoor music festival in Sydney, where 27 festival-goers were charged with drug possession and four with supplying a prohibited drug.
One of those was a 26-year-old who was allegedly found with nearly 500 MDMA pills, four grams of cocaine and cash.
A further 85 people were found with drugs at the Listen Out music festival in Sydney on the same day with eight charged with supplying a prohibited drug.
With Australian Associated Press
