It will include onsite drug checking at up to 10 festivals as part of the mobile side of the trial.
From mid-2025, a fixed location for pill testing in inner-city Melbourne will also be part of the trial, which is about understanding how to implement pill testing in the state, not about assessing whether the service should be made available.
Pill-testing sites also include trained staff who will provide information to those having their drugs checked to help them make safer and more informed decisions around consuming the substances.
Victoria has become the third state in Australia to begin offering pill testing. Earlier this year, Queensland ran a trial at the Rabbits Eat Lettuce festival, while Canberra has recently extended its support for drug checking.
“This is about saving lives,” said Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.
“I don’t condone drugs, but if a young person gets handed a pill at a festival, they need someone to tell them exactly what it is and exactly what it does, without telling them that it’s safe.”
In announcing the pill-testing trial, the Victorian Government cited overseas examples in which pill-testing reduced the number of drug-related hospital admissions at festivals.
Pre-pandemic, deaths from drugs at music festivals blew up into a major issue in New South Wales, with a coronial inquest into a group of deaths recommending major changes to how the issue of drugs at festivals are handled.
It became an existential issue for some festivals and led to the formation of the Australian Festival Association in response to ‘the war on music festivals launched by former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’.
Berejiklian was strongly against pill testing.
