VIC government announces on-site pill testing trial at 10 festivals

Following Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen's promise of an 18-month pill testing trial back in late June of this year, the Victorian government has over the weekend confirmed the first sites to host these tests.

Pill testing 'machines' will be available at 10 different festivals over the coming summer season, the first of which is set to be Beyond The Valley, held over NYE just west of Geelong.

The festival, run by Untitled Group of Pitch Music & Arts and much more, has long stood as a stand out in Australia's NYE offerings. This year it is set to play host to a range of local and international talent including Marlon Hoffstadt, Denis Sulta, horsegiirL, DJ BORING, Avalon Emerson, Sam Alfred, Nina Las Vegas, Vv Pete and many more.

In 2019, a 20-year-old Victorian man died in hospital days after suffering a suspected drug overdose at the festival. Outside of this however, Beyond The Valley has run since 2014 largely without incident.

It will be the first of five festivals set to host pill testing trials this summer, with another five announced in the following year's summer festival season.

Of the announcement, the ABC reports that Minister for Mental Health Ingrid Stitt had this to say:

"We know the drug market is becoming more volatile," Ms Stitt said. "We saw last summer, some of the really adverse impacts of people taking drugs when they didn’t know what was in them."

Read: PSA: Are you prepared for the dangers of synthetic opioids?

The machines in use by the program will be operated in partnership with The Loop Australia, "a not-for-profit organisation of chemists, health workers and researchers developing drug checking services in Queensland."

"MDMA purity is our biggest concern coming into the summer", the ABC reports Loop Australia chief executive Cameron Francis to have claimed. Recent reports of MDMA purity have shown some pills to contain up to 50% more MDMA than on average, with some pills even found to have been spiked with other substances.

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In the lead up to the trial, Untitled Group's director of Festivals and Major Events Pete Sofo had this to say:

"I really hope it just becomes another part of festival organisation broadly and becomes less of a talking point to be honest," Mr Sofo said. "It should just be a normal part of festival operations, just as much as medical, patron welfare, fire planning, traffic planning, the whole thing."

"Seeing the change, especially the introduction of synthetics, is a real concern," Mr Sofo said. "Now that we’ve got the ability to test for that, I think that’s really positive."

As NSW prepares for its own 'drug summit', the country will be watching closely as Victoria shows and shares its findings in the summer to come.

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Jack Colquhoun is Mixmag ANZ's Managing Editor, find him on Instagram.