The Project's Steve Price Slammed For Dismissing Groovin The Moo Pill Testing Trial

1 May 2018 | 8:33 am | Staff Writer

Things got heated.

​The Project panellist ​Steve Price ​has been slammed for rejecting the Australian first pill testing trial at ​Groovin The Moo's Canberra event this past weekend. 

Last night's show saw CEO of Noffs Foundation Matt Noffs, who was instrumental in the trial going ahead, appear to discuss the 128 participants who took part.

Price seemed irritated by the subject from the get-go, quickly responding when Noffs described the police being "enlightened" by the trial. 

"I’d hardly call police ignoring drug use 'enlightened' but that's your description and if that’s what you want to stick with, that’s fine," Price responded. 

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The debate heated up when Price pressed Noffs on how many punters discarded their drugs despite finding out they were in fact "clean". 

"It's a very confusing question for people who don’t understand that there's a science behind this," Noffs responded.


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"The chemists have to take that away and analyse it. Are you a chemist, Steve? You're not."

Noffs continued, "The other thing is… you do take drugs, Steve.

"You might enjoy a beer, but that’s sold over the counter and you’ve got some sort of quality control around it. This is a market that we know nothing about and again, if you or I could just have our kids to not use drugs, we'd do that. It hasn't worked, Steve. It hasn’t worked for a hundred bloody years."

Price snapped back, "It’s worked with my children. They don’t take drugs."

When questioned by Noffs if Price himself had taken drugs, Price said "No", which Noffs responded, "Liar".

The interview was followed by a wave of criticism against Price's comments. See some of the social media reaction below and watch last night's episode here.

Meanwhile, as ABC reports, Sunday's trial has been praised by politicians, including federal Liberal backbencher Warren Entsch and Federal Labor backbencher senator Lisa Singh.

"If we are going to get serious about harm minimisation, then pill testing at a health facility at a music festival without fear of police needs to be an option," Singh said.

Speaking to The Music on Monday, Noffs said the results were better than expected, as he was only hoping to attract at least 30 punters.

"Being able to sit down and spend time with these people and giving them information… that was the most important part," Noffs said.

"We made history but this has been happening for many years overseas so I feel like we are just starting to catch up."