Josh Tam might still be alive today if he had access to pill checking, his family believe.
The Queenslander died in 2018, at just 22, after taking MDMA at a music festival in New South Wales.
According to the Pennington Institute, more Australians die of drug overdoses than in car accidents.
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A NSW coronial inquest into Tam’s death, and five other overdose fatalities at NSW music festivals, recommended that the state government fund a drug checking service – a decades-old internationally common practice allowing drug users to voluntarily test their substances at mobile or fixed clinics, after counselling by a health professional – in order to save lives. Participating doctors told the inquest that it served as a warning of new drug threats on the market, many participants discarded their drugs, and no participant was ever told their substance was safe.
In a statement on Thursday, Tam’s parents, John and Julie Tam, and two siblings said that if pill testing had been available “he would have been able to speak to a health professional for the first time in his life who could have guided him to make a safer decision”.
In Tam’s home state of Queensland, the then Labor government opened Australia’s first permanent pill testing clinic in April 2024, at Bowen Hills. The Liberal National party opposition promised to close it, and one year later, after winning government, it did so, slashing its funding. But festival-based pill-testing services continued to operate in Queensland.
Now the LNP is going even further, banning pill testing in the state entirely.
On Thursday the government is expected to pass legislation to end pill testing at festivals and make sure that a plan to reopen the state’s pill testing service – at no cost to the taxpayer – can not go ahead.
The Tam family has issued a plea to the Queensland government not to outlaw pill testing.
“Please for the sake of the lives of our loved ones step aside and allow the experts to lead the way in keeping our loved ones safe,” the family’s statement said.
It’s just 936 days since Queensland became the first state in Australia to permit the harm reduction practice. It followed a successful trial by Canberra’s territorial government.
In August, Cameron Francis, CEO of the Loop Australia, which operated Queensland’s Bowen Hills clinic, sparked a showdown with the state government by announcing it would be reopened with private funding.
The Loop ultimately backed down and did not reopen its Bowen Hills site.
On Thursday, Francis said the government refused to meet with the organisation, and also refused to release an independent evaluation of the service conducted by the University of Queensland.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) also called for the evaluation to be released earlier this year.
Francis urged the LNP to pause its bid to ban pill testing and “consider the scientific evidence” at a press conference on Thursday.
Francis said the government’s decision would mean more overdose deaths.
“We have no overdose monitoring system in Queensland. We have no early warning system to a local community. So I absolutely think this decision will cost lives,” he said.
“I think the Crisafulli government needs to be accountable for the decision that they’re making.”
The premier, David Crisafulli, told parliament on Wednesday that the pill testing constituted “rolling out the welcome mat when it comes to drugs” and accused those who backed the practice of not believing in “law and order”.
There were 2,272 drug-induced deaths in Australia in 2023, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, with more than three-quarters of them unintentional.
The health minister, Tim Nicholls, was contacted for comment.
• In Australia, the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline is at 1800 250 015; families and friends can seek help at Family Drug Support Australia at 1300 368 186. In the UK, Action on Addiction is available on 0300 330 0659. In the US, call or text SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 988
