RED CARD FOR THE KILLER
Drug Free Australia and the Dalgarno Institute are sponsoring a national campaign calling out Pill Testing Australia for failing to red-card in both Canberra trials the very substance responsible for almost every Australian party pill death.
Whenever a substance or drug was identified in a pill that Pill Testing Australia considered to be “associated with increased harm/multiple overdoses/death” it classified that pill with a red card (see in ‘Background Information’ below).
Yet an important study of 392 Australian MDMA-related deaths between 2001 and 2016 (see in ‘Background Information below) found that it was either ecstasy itself, or ecstasy co-consumed with alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines etc that caused each death. No deaths from dangerous impurities or contaminants, and no deaths nominated from other synthetic drugs mixed with MDMA in pills. A majority of deaths were from normal recreational doses of ecstasy, not overdoses (read more on this below).
In the recent Canberra trial, seven pills containing N-ethylpentylone were given red cards, most likely from a batch of 200+ that caused no deaths elsewhere. Yet Pill Testing Australia refuses to give ecstasy, which in 2019 was in 90% of the 158 pills tested in Canberra, a red card despite it demonstrably exceeding their own criteria of “increased harm” and “death”.
Please e-mail Gino Vumbaca gino@3vc.com.au, President of Harm Reduction Australia (HRA)/Pill Testing Australia, to register your indignation about their failure to red-card Australia’s chief killer. And once ecstasy is red-carded, there is little point to pill testing – only 1% of Australian deaths since 1995 have been caused by other drugs (identifiable by their pill testing equipment) mixed in ecstasy pills, and no government would ever fund an intervention with only a 1% prevention rate. And their claimed counseling of patrons on the dangers of ecstasy clearly doesn’t work with not one user observed discarding their identified ecstasy in Canberra.
Call HRA’s Pill Testing Australia to account now.
We are calling on every Australian Parliamentarian who values saving young Australian lives to respond to this Brief by:
- E-mailing Harm Reduction Australia to suspend their ill-advised campaign for pill testing in this country
- Sending this e-mail on to local branches of your political party, urging all members to likewise e-mail Harm Reduction Australia
- Encourage anyone who is a parent of young people attending music festivals or clubs to link them to the Background Information for this campaign which gives a full understanding of the real causes of pill deaths in Australia – it may save a young life
For the comprehensive Background Information, click here.
NOTE: Drug Free Australia and the Dalgarno Institute have sent this campaign text to the Board/Committee Chair or President of those medical associations that are currently publicly supporting Harm Reduction Australia/Pill Testing Australia, seeking their support for this campaign and a disavowal of their previous support for pill testing in Australia. These organisations are:
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Royal Australasian College of Physicians |
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Royal Australian College of General Practitioners |
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Australasian College for Emergency Medicine |
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Rural Doctors Association of Australia |
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Australian Medical Association |
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Australian Nursing Midwifery Association |
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National Australian Pharmacy Students’ Association |
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Pharmaceutical Society of Australia |
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Forensic and Clinical Toxicology Association |
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Public Health Association of Australia |
Gary Christian
RESEARCH DIRECTOR
Drug Free Australia
0422 163 141