Page 2114 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
justice system. We believe the use of any drug, including alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceuticals, has the potential to be of harm to the person and their community. The most harmful drug in our society is alcohol, which is legal, accessible and actively promoted if one opens any media outlet any day of the week.
The Greens seek to apply similar policies to drug use and minimise the harm caused by all drugs, by treating people with illicit drug dependency with care and compassion, focused on improved health outcomes rather than criminalisation.
We know that, despite security, police and harm minimisation messages, festivals are places where people are taking drugs. Years of experience around the world has shown that pill testing is a cost-effective way of improving people’s understanding of the harms of drug use, reducing the amounts of drugs that people may choose to take, improving law enforcement intelligence gathering and, of course, ultimately saving lives by supporting the disposal of substances containing high levels of active and novel ingredients, often poisons and toxins.
The Greens have spent years urging the ACT government to provide pill testing at these events. After two trials, we have seen a number of positive evaluations of what has taken place at Groovin’ the Moo, and we believe it is time to commit to helping young people party more safely and, over time, supporting every major festival in the ACT to have mobile testing available.
The Greens understand that people continue to use drugs and that many young people, in particular, are experimenting with new and unknown substances regularly, not just at festivals but also on weekends across the city. We also know that these substances are not safe but that we can help people make safer choices easily and cheaply and that we can save lives. That is why we want to see the government move to decisively establish a dedicated pill-testing site in the heart of the city’s nightlife precinct to ensure that people are able to have drugs checked outside of festival days.
It is worth noting that, given the COVID-19 situation, festivals as we know them may not return for quite some time; thus the need for more accessible drug-checking sites is probably even more pertinent as we see people conduct more parties at home or come into places in the city and in the entertainment areas that are able to reopen.
If we are serious about harm minimisation, and we are, we want to support people to make safer choices both for themselves and for the wider community. That is why we want to work together with community events, festivals and licensed venues to increase the provision of self-testing alcohol and drug-testing kits such as breathalysers and saliva tests to every patron who wants to ensure that they do not drive under the influence and commit legislated road safety intoxication level limits offences.
These are the sorts of practical harm minimisation measures that we should be looking to deliver here in the ACT to improve safety, whether it is road safety or personal safety or even community safety more broadly. These are the measures we think can make a difference.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video