Page 5452 - Week 14 - Thursday, 30 November 2017
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That this Assembly:
(1) notes that:
(a) Australian ecstasy pills are amongst the most dangerous in the world, as found in a review of nearly 27 000 pills conducted in five countries over 10 years. They are highest in “unknown” ingredients and highest in the toxic and potentially fatal substance para-methoxyamphetamine (PMA);
(b) six Australians died after taking drugs at music festivals in 2015, with purity or toxicity believed to be important contributing factors;
(c) Australian drug policy rests on three pillars: supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction. The National Drug Strategy attributes equal importance to all pillars, but in 2013 law enforcement spending was at 64 percent, treatment was at 22 percent, prevention was at 9.6 percent, while harm reduction represented only 2.2 percent of spending; and
(d) the war on drugs has been ineffective at quelling the demand and supply of illicit drugs and instead it has pushed drug manufacture and trade underground, contributing to the increase in use of emerging psychoactive substances;
(2) further notes that:
(a) in September 2017, the ACT Government announced it would allow pill testing services to be provided as a harm reduction measure to keep people safe at the Spilt Milk music festival;
(b) a number of studies have provided positive indications that pill testing minimises risky drug consumption, including:
(i) in Austria, two-thirds of drug users who were informed by a government-funded pill testing service of potential toxic harms decided not to consume their drugs, and told their friends not to either;
(ii) trials at recent festivals in the United Kingdom found that one-fifth of people handed over all drugs for disposal and an additional fifth said they would dispose of the drugs themselves when they were informed they did not have the drug they thought they had; and
(iii) in Australia, 76 percent of participants in a hypothetical study reported they would not take a pill with “unknown” substances in it; and
(c) in the absence of an officially endorsed pill testing trial, festival-goers are increasingly turning to reagent testing kits which are significantly less reliable and do not provide an opportunity to give information to consumers or collect data about what drugs are in the market;
(3) expresses its disappointment that the opportunity to trial pill testing at Spilt Milk was missed despite the best efforts of the STA-SAFE consortium to provide all necessary documentation and paperwork as requested; and
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