The Queensland government is set for a showdown over its objections to a plan to reopen a pill testing clinic in Brisbane with private funding.
The Loop Australia – which operated the CheQpoint clinic in Bowen Hills, in Brisbane’s inner north, with public money until April – has announced a plan to reopen on Friday after it received a private donation.
But deputy premier, Jarrod Bleijie, stepped in over the weekend, threatening to legislate to ban the practice if they did not back down.
“The government’s election commitment was not to support publicly or privately funded pill testing. [We] will do whatever is necessary to enforce our position,” he said.
“We do not tolerate it. We will not allow it and we will legislate or regulate against those private providers.”
The former Labor government opened the publicly funded service in April 2024, and also backed a second clinic on the Gold Coast. The LNP health minister, Tim Nicholls, ordered it closed a year later on the basis that it was not cost-effective. An independent review of the service conducted for the government has not been released.
Sign up: AU Breaking News email
The Loop Australia CEO, Cameron Francis, said it had received a donation from philanthropist Tanya Nelson Carnegie and her Vasudhara Foundation that is sufficient to fund it one day a week for about another year.
The service informed the government in early July, 60 business days in advance of its planned reopening this Friday.
Francis said the service had planned to act according to the policy regulating – but not banning – drug checking services available on their website.
The plan was announced publicly on Friday, International Overdose Awareness Day.
Asked whether they would still open their doors, Francis said The Loop Australia was reconsidering its options after the deputy premier’s comments.
“We’re waiting to understand what the government’s policy is,” he said.
“We have sought meetings with the health minister to discuss our work a number of times, but those requests have been declined.”
It is unclear how or whether the government could prevent the service from opening before the next planned sitting of parliament, in the middle of month.
Greens MP Michael Berkman said the service had been proven to reduce drug use.
“Before the election, the premier promised that he’d listen to the experts. Instead the Queensland LNP is pursuing ideology over evidence, setting up an absurd showdown with the experts on pill testing and drug harm reduction,” Berkman said.
Opposition leader, Steven Miles, said the government had made decisions based on its ideology.
“Everyone other than the LNP agrees that pill testing saves lives,” Miles said.
AMA Queensland president, Dr Nick Yim, said pill testing was “an evidence-backed method of reducing harm in the community from drugs and other substances”.
“Services that not only prevent harm, but keep people out of our busy emergency departments, should be supported,” he said.
“There is no viable alternative solution to pill testing as an early-warning system to alert our community to the circulation of harmful substances”.
