NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian might have backed away from her threat to ban the Defqon.1 dance music festival following two drug-related deaths two weeks ago, but her tough talk appears to have had an impact, with a coalition of more than 60 music industry representatives asking for a seat at the table for any discussions "about better solutions for safety at music festivals".
In a significant change of policy, the industry appears to be ready to collectively tackle questions of patron safety, including, but not limited to, illicit drug use.
"In light of recent events, we have come together to request the NSW Government include music festival representatives on any expert panel established to consider health and safety issues at music festivals," the musicians, promoters, festival organisers and others wrote on September 24, under the banner of Music NSW.
"We are focused on ensuring live music and entertainment is a positive and safe experience for everyone, and the recent deaths due to drug use are heartbreaking and deeply troubling. The safety and well-being of people attending music festivals is of utmost importance. Our expertise, experience, skills and research can assist you."
The NSW Premier established a panel on September 18 in the wake of the Defqon deaths. It comprises the state's Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, Chief Medical Officer Dr Kerry Chant and Chair of the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority Philip Crawford.
Berejiklian immediately ruled that pill-testing, which is "not supported by the NSW government", would not be considered.
But industry figures argue that this would amount to a missed opportunity.
Two people died at the Defqon music festival in early September.
"I don't think pill testing is the golden-arrow solution, but I do think we absolutely need to focus on harm minimisation over zero tolerance," says Jane Slingo, executive director of the Electronic Music Conference.
"I strongly believe the NSW Government needs to embark on extensive consultation with festival representatives and operations including security and health services, drug-use experts and drug policy development experts so that together they can explore every single option. It can only be better to have thoroughly informed decisions made on the best approach from here."
Daniel Teuma, director of Novel, which stages the Smalltown festival in Melbourne and Ararat, agrees.
"Pill testing would be the next logical step, because we’re taking every other measure to give a safe environment for people to enjoy themselves anyway."
Like others spoken to by Fairfax, Teuma could point to a host of safety and security measures on site, ranging from chill-out spaces, to the basic assistance of St John's to the more serious level of care that might be provided by Ambulance Victoria or MICA.
"We even have a helipad area in case we need to evacuate someone to Melbourne," he says.
Adelle Robinson, director of Fuzzy which recently staged Listen Out festival in St Kilda, acknowledges festival organisers have a duty of care to provide a safe environment for festivalgoers, and insists they take that duty extremely seriously.
"However, no one can actually control what people choose to ingest," she says.
Fuzzy takes a "multi-faceted approach" at its events, which includes police presence and harm-minimisation strategies. "We advocate education around drug and safety issues and have implemented a staff and patron training initiative with the Red Cross over the past few years," Robinson says. Through that initiative, over 5,000 festival staff have been trained.
Like many experts in the field, Robinson notes that drug use is by no means unique to the festival scene.
"People take 'party drugs' in all kinds of settings, but most of these don't have the huge police presence and media attention that festivals do. So festivals make drug issues much more conspicuous."
Many festivalgoers under the influence of illicit drugs have not, in fact, taken them at the festival in question, notes Slingo.
One of the biggest safety issues, she says, is "people taking high quantities of drugs before they leave home for the festival because they're aware that most have a very heavy presence of police and sniffer dogs at the entry points. This, in my view, is a recipe for disaster, especially in the Australian summer heat."
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has backed down from threats to shut Defqon down after two people died at the festival.
There is a growing sense that the biggest issue in this debate right now is a lack of reliable information.
It has been estimated that around three people die each year at music festivals in Australia, but the tally is purely anecdotal. A national database would help inform better policy, Will Tregoning from drug law reform agency Unharm noted recently.
It is important, too, to put the issue of drug use at festivals in context. "Whatever the number of drug-related deaths at festivals, it's dwarfed by the total number of deaths related to illegal drug use, which is itself dwarfed by the total number of deaths related to legal drug use," he said. "Most overdose deaths happen at home and involve opiates or benzodiazepines."
On a micro-level, better information about what is in the drug a festival goer is planning to take might very well influence their decision to proceed or not. As a parliamentary library summary paper released in May noted, "pill testing changes behaviour, with research suggesting that negative results would deter a majority of people from consuming drugs, and spur them to warn their friends".
Pill testing can reveal how strong a drug is, in a sector where there are no statutory guidelines or labels to guide customers. As Paul Dillon of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia notes, when people are used to "weak" ecstasy they often double or triple dose, which can wreak havoc when they stumble upon a stronger batch.
Typically, he says, 110 milligrams of MDMA produces the desired effect in a user. "[But] we are seeing capsules with anything like 170 milligrams right up to 394 milligrams. It's a complexity that young people are not going to think about when they are popping something to have a good time."
But there is a downside to pill testing, and it perhaps is part of the reason the closest Australia has so far come to embracing it is a solitary trial at the Groovin’ the Moo festival in Canberra earlier this year (where half of the 85 tested samples contained, according to reports, "substances such as lactose, paint, toothpaste and condensed milk"). The problem is pill testing doesn't necessarily reveal every compound present.
"The greatest concern … is that on-site tests cannot detect new designer drugs on the market, such as flakka, liquid acid or NBOMe (aka N-Bomb) compounds," forensic scientist Andrew Leibie noted in January 2017.
Joseph Pham and Diana Nguyen both died of suspected overdoses at Defqon music festival in Sydney.
This last is particularly dangerous, he wrote, because "as little as a few thousandths of a gram are enough to cause violent or frightening hallucinations, major cardiac symptoms, nausea, vomiting and potentially death".
Regardless of the desirability of treating it as a criminal issue rather than a health one, policing at festivals has limited impact on drug consumption, as research presented at the Global Cities After Dark conference last year suggests: 69.6 per cent of survey respondents said they would use drugs if police were present, compared to 76.5 per cent who said they would if no police were present, a drop of roughly 10 per cent.
"If the zero-tolerance approach to drugs at festivals was working, we wouldn't still be facing this problem so many years after the zero tolerance approach was first implemented," notes Slingo.
"It would be much easier and less expensive for our events if people stopped using drugs," adds Robinson. "But drugs continue, decade after decade, to be widespread in our society."
She says "any measures that will make our events safer" are welcome, and sees pill-testing as just one part of a solution that would also include drug counselling and education services.
"It’s not a 'yes, safe, no, not safe' answer," she says. "I think that type of multi-faceted approach where all stakeholders are actively involved would work the best. If even one life is potentially saved or if young Australians can be better educated about drug danger and safety, that is more important."
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