Premier Chris Minns has admitted there is a conflict in allowing pill testing at music festivals while still enforcing drug laws. While attendees can have illicit drugs tested for safety, police will still enforce drug laws outside the testing area. Minns insists that this does not signal legalization of drugs at festivals and highlights the government's decision to prioritize harm reduction over a perfect legal solution.
Premier Chris Minns has conceded there is an “essential contradiction” in his government’s decision to allow pill testing at summer music festivals while still expecting police to enforce the law if people are caught with illicit drugs.From early next year, music festival attendees will be able to have samples of illicit drugs tested for their purity, potency and the presence of adulterants by NSW Health professionals.
But, while Minns said police won’t target people leaving the testing area, he insisted officers would still be expected to enforce the law if festival-goers were caught with drugs inside or near the music festival grounds.“Police will enforce the law, and they’ve got discretion at the moment about how they apply it, but drugs remain illegal in NSW, and that will still be the case as a result of this change,” he said.
“But there’s no perfect law here. There’s no law that we can craft that can do both things at the same time, solving effectively for both of those problems. So the government’s made a decision to live with the contradiction, rather than risk someone dying as a result of having it in place.”
Pill Testing Drug Laws Music Festivals NSW Government Harm Reduction
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