The flaws and hypocrisy of the NSW Government regarding Pill-Testing
Gladys Berejiklian, premier for NSW continues her support against pill-testing at music festivals after another drug related death occurred over the weekend at Strawberry Fields Festival. This time she’s added some justification to her position, as follows:
“What questions would you be asking me if we allow pill testing and over a summer 10 people died … after someone told them there were no impurities in their pill — we’d be having a very different conversation…For every person whose life might be saved by pill testing, if that were the case, there could be 10 others that succumb because they’re given a false sense of security…What might be OK for one person in taking a tablet could be lethal for another person. So let’s not pretend that pill testing would have saved these lives.”
This is a deeply flawed argument and also quite a hypocritical one by the premier, I’ll explain.
How it’s flawed
Gladys noting that pill-testing runs the risk of giving someone the green light to consume a pill that still might be dangerous to them, is blatantly wrong. These programs don’t test the drugs and tell the punter that sa’ll good to pop, get maggot-ed and enjoy the festival. Quite the opposite actually. Pill-testing that is part of policy in Netherlands and tried in various festivals around the world including Australia does not ever instruct the punter that their drugs are safe. The only pill-testing program administered in Australia at Groovin The Moo last year starts by instructing the punter that there is no safe level of drug usage, and the test is not a medical consultation. It’s a consultation on the substances in the drug, and the associated risks by taking that drug. These type of pill-testing programs that are being pushed for in Australia is more about caution than it is “pro-drug” and has proven to reduce harm, hospital admissions, and educated numerous people on the dangers of illegal drug usage.
Going off numerous comments made by Gladys and the NSW Police Commissioner who has also rejected the notion of pill-testing, it seems they think that if pill-testing is allowed in music festivals then it normalises the usage of drugs. This is not true, and because of one simple and undeniable truth — it’s already normalised. For thousands of years us humans have experimented and inserted conscious altering substances into our bodies, from ancient civilisations 10,000 years ago taking opium and psychedelics to festival punters who want to elevate their music experience today with MDMA. Making drugs illegal and policing it hasn’t obviously turned people off drugs, because people well, are still taking drugs (especially at music festivals)— so why continue futile policies? If it’s such an intrinsic part of our existence, why not introduce programs and measures that bring safety to drug usage so we can you know, keep people alive? This has already happened, ironically in NSW with medically supervised injection centres (MSIC) which were introduced 18 years ago by then premier, Bob Carr. This program has been a huge success in preventing deaths, lauded internationally even by Richard Branson, and I’m going to argue it hasn’t actually increased the usage of drugs, because these people were already going to take drugs anyway. It just gives them a safe environment and a professionally supervised space to do it in. Someone doesn’t walk past an injection centre and think “you know what, I wouldn’t mind some drugs right now” and casually stroll in to take a heroin injection like they’re picking up a soy flat white from a cafe. Injection rooms are similar to pill-testing stations in that they don’t advertise or encourage drug-usage, they are simply programs to make drug usage safe for people who were already going to take the drugs. Pill-testing advocates don’t want to promote drug usage, they want to make what is already going to happen safer.
The NSW Government on the other hand is actually promoting a dangerous and harmful activity, which brings me to how they’re being hypocritical and have no business telling us that their policies are to keep us safe.
How it’s hypocritical
Gladys says that if pill-testing saves a life, it can potentially cause 10 other deaths because it gives people a false sense of security. Here Gladys is showing her concern for people’s well-being and using it as a justification not to introduce pill-testing. This is the same premier that listens to and helps powerful gambling lobbyists (cough* Clubs NSW) and keeps that industry alive and strong. Gambling as we all know is a major problem in this country and causes a number of devastating issues for Australians but mainly it has been proven to lead to violence including domestic violence and the obvious one; huge financial difficulties for thousands of Australian families. Gambling losses for people just in NSW has now amounted to $9.8BN, yes that’s just NSW — just stop and let that statistic sink in, 9.8 fucking billion dollars wiped out of people’s pockets. It’s the biggest gambling state in Australia, and contributes significantly to helping Australia be the biggest gambling nation in the world. This is an industry that preys on people, utilises intelligent gaming design, manipulative advertising to lure people (commonly with low incomes) into financial debt. Gladys doesn’t do anything about these major issues, but continues to help it. So she does not have any credibility when speaking about people’s well-being when she supports and already “normalises” (see what I did there) such a dangerous activity. On the contrary as I keep saying pill-testing advocates are not promoting drug-usage, they’re just trying to make it safer, and Gladys still isn’t on-board.
In summary not only is it a fundamentally flawed argument, but the compassionate perspective it seems to be inspired from has no weight or credibility given Gladys’ support for gambling in NSW. It’s also hypocritical for the NSW Government to continue supporting drug injection centres in Sydney but be so against pill-testing at the same time, which serves a very similar purpose (insert confused person meme). This is not a leader that has our best interest at heart or is using any logic in her policies for preventing drug-related deaths at music festivals.
