Young people attending the Spilt Milk music festival have thrown their support behind pill-testing, calling for it to be introduced at all festivals and ruing its absence on Saturday.
One reveller who spoke to the Sunday Canberra Times, Liliana Bacueti, even said she had seen the benefits first-hand after friends threw away pills at the Groovin the Moo festival last year when they were found to contain potentially deadly chemicals.
The ACT government has supported trials conducted by Pill Testing Australia at Canberra's Groovin the Moo in each of the past two years. Both were deemed to be a success after punters threw away pills upon learning they contained unexpected substances.
Pill-testing has not been allowed at Spilt Milk, however, because it is held on land controlled by the federal government. The National Capital Authority says the federal government remains opposed to pill-testing because "it could imply that illicit drugs are safe".
Outside Spilt Milk on Saturday, festival-goer Renee Roberts said if pill-testing saved just one person, it was worth it.
"[Taking drugs] is not my thing, but if people are going to do it, you might as well do it safely," she said.
"I'm all for pill-testing. I know most young people are for it.
"It's only the older people who seem to have a problem with it, but let's be real, in 10 years, they don't mean shit.
"Millennials are the future and it makes no sense that we don't have a say in any of this. We can vote for whoever we want, but at the end of the day it's up to these old politicians who have no idea what's going on at these festivals."
Liliana Bacueti was also strongly in favour of pill-testing. She said while you could buy do-it-yourself kits, not many people had them and offering pill-testing at festivals made it more accessible.
"Last year at [Groovin the Moo], we had friends who got their pills tested and it turned out to have something [in them] that meant, if they took them, they would've died," she said. "It saves lives."
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Zarden Hurley and Sam Morris, who attended the festival with Ms Bacueti, agreed.
"People are going to be doing [drugs] anyway, regardless of what the laws are," Mr Hurley said.
"Ultimately, it's about people's lives. People die taking the wrong stuff."
William Kelly, who was also attending Spilt Milk, said young people would always take risks.
He said pill-testing helped minimise that risk for not only the person using the drugs, but those around them.
"If you're going to [take drugs], you may as well test them and see if they're in the right state,"Mr Kelly said.
"If they're not in the right state, something's going to happen. Simple as that. [The user] might get angry, fight with someone else or just go overboard."
Every festival-goer who spoke to the Sunday Canberra Times wanted to see pill-testing made available at all music festivals.
An ACT Policing spokesman said five people had been dealt with for drug possession at Spilt Milk on Saturday, but no major incidents occurred and police were generally pleased with crowd behaviour.
A number of people affected by the heat had received first aid.
The spokesman said ACT Policing did not use drug detection dogs at Spilt Milk.
He said the sight of the dogs could lead people to consume all the drugs they had on them in order to avoid arrest, placing their immediate wellbeing in jeopardy.
Detective Superintendent Smith also said there was a risk that children might mistake discarded pills for lollies if they were thrown on the ground and not noticed until well after the event.
