Page 992 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 March 2016
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Earlier I mentioned examples of harm reduction, and I cited the use of Naloxone amongst opiate users and the use of needle syringe programs. These are areas where, thankfully, the ACT government is still leading and should be congratulated for doing so. The ACT’s Naloxone program is an example of the success, and it shows the benefits, of harm reduction efforts. That program acknowledges that people do take opiates and in doing so they are at risk of an overdose. We prescribe people Naloxone on prescription to prevent them dying. Let us all agree that this is a good and sensible harm minimisation approach that can save lives.
When you get down to it, there is not a lot of difference between the Naloxone program and a service that will test illicit drugs at a music festival for substances or a composition that might kill or seriously harm. Both approaches recognise the reality that people take drugs. Both approaches accept that a practical intervention can save a person’s life.
I take this opportunity to reiterate my call for the ACT government to support pill testing services for Canberra events where drug taking is likely. If the ACT government really does support a treatment and harm minimisation approach, then it will separate itself from the rather pig-headed approach shown by some other jurisdictions and explore how it can support pill testing to help save lives in the ACT.
Why could we explore supervised injecting rooms in the 1990s but we cannot explore pill testing in 2016? It should not even be a controversial topic. Pill testing is now relatively routine at festivals in several countries. It has even occurred before in Australia before it was shut down by the Howard government. We need to accept that sometimes people take drugs regardless of the efforts and resources we pour into enforcement. We need to accept that deaths and harm occur from this drug taking and that this is preventable.
Testing drugs at festivals can save a person’s life. It can prevent a person getting seriously ill and going to hospital. At the Sydney Stereosonic festival last year, a young woman died, 120 people were treated for drug-related issues, and nine were taken to hospital. The number of emergency admissions for so-called party drugs at New South Wales hospitals has doubled in five years. Last year at music festivals in Australia there were six deaths and countless overdoses as a result of ingesting drugs.
I suggest we all think for a moment about our own children or young relatives or perhaps young family friends. What would we think if they were to take a pill at a festival because on that one day they made a mistake or because they succumbed to peer pressure or because they thought they would experiment? It is worth thinking about that from a personal perspective. Would you rather they got that smart advice or would you rather stick to your law enforcement policy that says this is a crazy approach? Let’s face it, these are the things that young people sometimes do. It is easy to say kids should just say no, but we know that sometimes they do not. Do we really accept that a young person who makes this mistake deserves to be hospitalised or even to die from taking that drug? How do we feel knowing their life could have been saved by a very simple pill check conducted by a professional who would also counsel the person about the risks of the drug right at the most relevant moment? I urge the government to rethink this issue.
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