Josh’s parents have now started a foundation called Just Mossin to raise awareness of safety at music festivals. They’re hoping the music festival coronial inquest will lead to more harm minimisation strategies like pill testing. “Change is what’s needed. We don’t believe we have all the answers to it, we hope that the coronial inquest will establish what those changes…

The only way to ensure a safer Australian society is to legalise and regulate all drugs. This could save lives, earn huge revenue for the state and diminish the power of criminal gangs that make billions of dollars annually from the production and sale of illicit substances. This doesn’t mean a free-for-all where heroin, cocaine, opioids, ice or methamphetamines will…

The personal use and possession of ice and other illicit drugs would be decriminalised in NSW under a public health-driven plan backed by the Bar Association and other top lawyers. In a submission to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug Ice the association says that criminalising personal drug use “may result in greater harm to the individual, and to…

A new push for pill-testing has emerged within the conservative side of politics with a Liberal group fighting for a controversial trial to prevent drug-related deaths at music festivals in Victoria. The Liberal Pride branch has proposed a year-long pill-testing trial in a motion to be debated by party members this month. […]

The ACT government says it will consider directly funding pill testing, after seven potentially deadly drugs were detected at Sunday’s Groovin the Moo music festival at Exhibition Park. Around 234 festivalgoers out of the 24,000-strong crowd took part in the last free drug checking trial in the ACT on the weekend.  […]

After nine months, the room is doing exactly what it was designed to do – save lives. More than 650 overdoses have been successfully reversed in the injecting room, all of which would have occurred in public and which may have otherwise been fatal. […]

If we learn about drugs and drug policy from people who don’t understand them, whose careers and ideologies literally depend on misunderstanding them, we will likely see drug use and drug harms continue to increase alongside the spread of misinformation. Please consult with relevant experts before making material concerning drugs and drug policy public. […]

Pill testing is advocated by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. Even more significantly the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation – representing 275,000 nurses and other health sector workers – is also calling for pill testing trials. […]

In January, the PSA issued a position statement in favour of trials being conducted at music festivals, as well as other environments where illicit drug use takes place. […]

A second pill testing trial will take place this year at the Canberra leg of the Groovin the Moo festival, a year after it hosted the first Australian trial in April 2018. The trial, to be run by the STA-SAFE consortium, will use the same technology but will be a larger operation with an additional testing machine and more staff. […]