The recent drug-related death of 25-year-old Sylvia Choi at the Stereosonic music festival in Sydney is a tragedy. It raises the question of how we can try to minimise this happening.
One strategy – which is current policy – is detection and punishment to stop people using drugs. It simply does not work. The “war on drugs” has been a massive failure. It has come at great economic and social cost, and most ironically, increases the potential for harm for those people who use drugs by framing drug use around stigma, criminalisation, fear, shame and furtiveness.
Policing, often involving sniffer dogs, needs to be contained. The use of sniffer dogs might lead to body searches. This can include strip searching and making naked young women and men squat over mirrors. Data last year in NSW showed that 10,000 innocent people were subjected to police searches because sniffer dogs incorrectly indicated they were carrying drugs and that the rates of naked searches had increased by 32% over the previous five years.
This policing can cause people to panic and take their drugs all at once. This heightens the chance of overdose.
It goes without saying this is counterproductive. More needs to be done to address the reality that people will still use drugs and attend festivals. Instead we need a strategy that recognises some people will take drugs and provides programs to minimise the harm involved.
Our organisation, Harm Reduction Victoria, runs the Dancewize project to meet that need. We have more than 60 young volunteers from the festival communities trained about drugs, their use and effects. At events they have a booth, do outreach into the crowd, and provide a chill out space for those experiencing difficulties.
They are peers of those at the events, after their shifts they party, hence they are approachable. We have a policy of not encouraging drug use but we will talk about drugs without judgment or moralising. Notably, people frequently tell us they are surprised they can talk about drugs without being told off. This then allows for discussion to help understand the effects of their drugs and how to minimise dangers.
We encourage people to talk with their friends about what they are using so that they can monitor and support each other, and they know if they need help they can come to Dancewize. The model is based on peers talking to and supporting each other. Within the broader context of fear, silence and secrecy about drugs this approach works.
One way to stop people panicking and taking their drugs when they see police or sniffer dogs is to implement the practice of some European countries of providing amnesty bins into which people place their drugs without penalty when they see the police.
An additional benefit of amnesty bins is it allows for analysis of the drugs to identify those currently in circulation. This is critical because of the emergence of a sophisticated market of new drugs whose chemical composition is changing constantly. This means their content and effects also constantly change and we don’t know what they are and what effects they will have on those who take them.
These “novel psychoactive substances” are produced in labs in other countries and are advertised and purchased online. Policing and prohibition cannot impact on this. It is a highly evolved global market combining smart capitalism with the cutting edges of drug evolution and production and internet technology.
This is why we need to provide pill testing at events. Again, this happens in Europe. The testing provides results within 20 minutes during which the team can engage the user in a discussion about drugs.
There was such an initiative at music festivals in South Australia. It used a model similar to Dancewize but also involving doctors. They researched the impact of their presence and found that, if people were told there was a concern about the contents of their drug, there were greatly increased rates of minimising risk by asking for more information or reducing the amount taken, and, most significantly, the rate of those who would still take the drug dropped from 40% to nil.
The evidence and the experience clearly show what works. Education, pill testing, changes in policing and the introduction of amnesty bins all make a significant difference to the potential harms facing those who will continue to use drugs. We just need to provide them.