Doctors Vow To Pill Test At NSW Festivals Regardless Of Government's Stance

A team of doctors as part of the Drug Law Reform Foundation have promised to introduce pill testing at NSW music festivals, despite Premier Mike Baird and the NSW Government's rock-solid stance to dismiss the idea. 

As ABC reports, president of the Foundation Dr Alex Wodak said with or without the government's support, the team would go ahead with pill testing — "The number of these deaths seems to be increasing, the number of the presentations to emergency departments of people attending these events is increasing, and it doesn't have to be like this." 

Dr Wodak says, "People who test drugs at these events can find out that the drug that they've just bought is dangerous [and] would risk their life if they took it.

"When people hear that they throw the drugs away. The current police policy, which relies on saturation policing with sniffer dogs, seems to have failed."

Meanwhile, Baird is confident in his view that, "There is a very safe way to go about pills and that is don't take them."

Dr Wodak spoke recently as part of ABC's Four Corners investigation into drug laws, stating, "When you look at the arguments authorities trot out for why they can’t allow pill testing in Australia, they are so weak. I would be embarrassed to say things like that myself and yet the politicians trot out this nonsense."

As a physician who specialises in addiction, Dr Wodak also said the Drug Law Reform Foundation were looking to raise $100,000 to kick off the project at one festival to start with, paying for lab-standard equipment and a review to measure the program's effects on drug abuse.

The strong calls for pill testing comes just months after the tragic deaths of an Adelaide Stereosonic attendee, a death at Sydney Stereosonic and 20 hospitalisations at Stereosonic Brisbane.