The NSW Minns Labor government has recognised that drug and pill testing is effective in reducing risks and harms associated with illicit drug use, including for festival attendees.
‘Over the course of the trial, more than 1,800 individuals visited the services and around 1,500 drug samples were tested,’ stated the Minns government in a recent press release.
‘The evaluation found the drug checking services had a strong uptake among festival attendees and was associated with a reduction in urgent drug-related hospital presentations and ICU admissions compared with previous years of the same music festivals.’
They have finally taken the somewhat limited step of committing to ‘continue drug checking services at selected NSW music festivals [15] from October this year, following a successful 12-month trial and independent evaluation’.
This is not enough. They have finally recognised what they have been told again and again – that drug testing works; it saves lives.
They were told that by the NSW State Coroner’s Court that examined the deaths of six young people at music festivals between December 2017 and January 2019.
The Coroner stated in November 2019 that, ‘the evidence draws into clear focus the need for the NSW Government to look with fresh eyes at the potential dangers associated with drug use at music festivals. There is a need to reframe our main priority from reducing drug use to reducing drug death.’
Recommendations included medically supervised pill testing, decriminalisation of personal drug possession, and scrapping drug detection dogs altogether, among others.
The 2020 Special Commission of Inquiry into ICE in NSW again recommended pill testing, decriminalisation of personal possession, and limiting the use of drug detection dogs and ending police strip searches and sniffer dogs specifically at music festivals.
The 2024 NSW Drug Summit again recommended drug and pill testing and ending the use of drug detection dogs at festivals.
New analysis from this year’s Penington Institute’s Annual Overdose Report revealed
2,596 Australians died from drug-induced causes in 2024, a 10.7 per cent increase from 2023.
Most drug consumption takes place outside festivals, and pill testing should not just be available at 15 festivals in NSW – drug testing should be available at all festivals and to the general public at key locations throughout the state.
In NSW there were 575 unintentional drug-induced deaths in 2024 (almost 70 per cent higher than the road toll of 340 deaths in 2024) with almost all of these occurring outside of festivals. That is why there have been ongoing recommendations to stop using drug detection dogs and strip searching (the landmark strip search class action judgment of Justice Yehia in October 2025 indicates that strip searches conducted on the mere suspicion of minor drug possession are unlawful) as it was identified as a cause of patrons ‘preloading’ or consuming all their drugs at once to avoid detection.
The NSW government has taken an important step by facilitating pill testing at 15 festivals, but they need to take a leap of science and actually follow the evidence that will ensure that lives are saved. The evidence is clear that drug testing and removing strip searching and drug detection dogs at festivals makes people safer; it saves lives, and the NSW government have the power in their hands to make the difference.
Aslan Shand, editor
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