drugfreeaust@drugfree.org.au drugfree.org.au ABN: 63 312 656 641 Media contact Gary Christian Research Director Drug Free Australia (02) 4362 9839 0422 163 141 ” width=”168″ height=”843″ />MEDIA RELEASE
12 November 2019
Exposing pill testing’s hidden agenda
Drug Free Australia believes that once Australians see that Coroner’s statistics expose pill testing as a complete and utter failure with no protective effect against the actual cause of almost every party pill death within our country, they will more readily understand what the likely real agenda is for its advocates.
Less than a month ago NSW’s Daily Telegraph published the results of a study by NDARC’s Dr Amanda Roxburgh in which she accessed all Coroner’s reports in the National Coronial Information System on ecstasy-related deaths within Australia. Over a 15 year period from 2001 to 2016 there were 392 deaths, on average 26 per year, and all were caused either by ecstasy alone or a toxic synergy of ecstasy used with other drugs such as alcohol, cocaine or amphetamines.
Gary Christian, Research Director for Drug Free Australia, asserts that these statistics are the death-knell for pill testing in Australia. “Pill testing advocates have been blatantly misinforming the public about party pill deaths, deflecting from the real cause which is ecstasy itself. While they put the blame on impurities from which there have been no Australian deaths, or from other deadly drugs mixed into an ecstasy pill where there are only two possible deaths recorded in those 15 years (see page 15), they have carefully hidden from the public that it is normal recreational doses of ecstasy that are killing most Australians, as is evident from Roxburgh’s data. And the reason they would want to hide the real cause is because they have been giving normal doses of ecstasy the ‘all clear’ (see page 9 first dot-point and compare Diagram 3 p 11) in their Canberra trials.”
Since Drug Free Australia started publicising last year that ecstasy itself was the cause of almost every death, Pill Testing Australia changed its narrative, saying that their role was to have a conversation with party drug users to encourage them to not use the pill but throw it away. However, Drug Free Australia has given testimony at the NSW Inquest into Music Festival Deaths that there is no record of even one user throwing out their ecstasy pill in the 2019 Canberra trial once ecstasy had been verified – a complete failure on the part of Pill Testing Australia’s counselors to deter use.
Adding insult to injury, pill testing in the United Kingdom has had appalling results. In England and Wales, where ecstasy use and deaths are tracked yearly (as opposed to other European countries where records of deaths are poor or non-existent) pill testing organisation ‘The Loop’ commenced public pill testing in 2013 and by 2016 had begun broadening to a dozen music festivals with government approval. In 2013 there were 43 ecstasy deaths which more than doubled to 92 deaths by 2018, while ecstasy use was at 1.2% in 2013 (see p 7), increasing to 1.7% in 2017. Claims that pill testing would reduce deaths and change user behaviour away from using party drugs have certainly failed, with it likely that the false safety projected by pill testing is broadening the pool of users and multiplying deaths.
“With this monumental failure of pill testing to provide any protective effect against the real cause of party drug deaths in Australia, we have to be asking why pill testing advocates persist,” said Mr Christian. In Drug Free Australia’s written submission to the NSW Coroner’s Inquest, URL’s were provided showing that each of the leading Australian advocates for pill testing from Harm Reduction Australia are also leading the push for cannabis legalisation (see page 54). “When exposed to the truth about pill testing we have no doubt that Tasmanians will be angered by what appears likely to be a push to simply normalise drug use for different end – legalising it eventually.”
Media contacts : Gary Christian 0422 163 141 Rob Wharton – CEO, Rural Health – Tasmania 0407 135 733