Wanna See Pill Testing In Action Overseas? Clear Your TV Schedule

ABC's Foreign Correspondent has sent triple j's Tom Tilley to a series of European festivals to witness pill testing in action.

The episode, Testing Times, comes as Australia's highly politicised pill testing debate rages on in the wake of an unprecedented number of festival deaths. 

It will see Tilley travel to the UK's Boomtown Fair and a street party in Switzerland to observe two different approaches to the matter. 

“It does worry me that someone could die this weekend,” one festivalgoer at Boomtown Fair can be heard saying in the promo. Despite this, Boomtown Fair's proactive efforts to include a front-of-house drug testing service did not proceed. 

Elsewhere, in Zurich drug testing services were free, government-run and operated out in the open.

The episode comes following a panel at BIGSOUND last week that questioned health and safety measures within the music industry.

Cameron Francis, a representative from pill testing organisation The Loop said his company "would not exist if we had sensible drug laws in this country". 

"Pill testing is mopping up the mess of prohibition," he shared.

Testing Times airs on Foreign Correspondent on ABC TV at 8pm 17 September.