The Groovin the Moo music festival in Canberra will again be without pill-testing after prohibitively expensive insurance premiums forced the service to be scrapped.
The festival was the first in the country to trial free pill-testing in 2018, and returned to the festival in 2019, with doctors hailing the service a success.
Pill Testing Australia lead clinician and emergency medicine physician David Caldicott said he was shocked when he heard the figure insurance companies had quoted in order for the harm-minimisation initiative to resume this year, amounting to an increase of 2,200 per cent.
"We definitely identified products that were potentially lethal on their own, and definitely in conjunction with other drugs," emergency doctor David Caldicott said.
"Last time it was about $10,000 for a premium. But since we have completed [pill-testing] and demonstrated that it makes the festivals safer for everyone involved, the premiums have gone up, for reasons that we can't comprehend, to $220,000," he said.
"It doesn't make any sense."
He said he asked the companies why their prices had skyrocketed and was given a blunt response.
"'It's a business and we can do what we like'," Dr Caldicott said he was told.
He has sympathised with disappointed festival-goers who he said had appreciated the service - and even changed their drug habits as a result.
"It's not for want of us trying. We'd love to be doing it," he said.
"We know for a fact that festival-goers love this service, even if they aren't attending [the pop-up pill-testing site] for the purpose of getting their drugs checked.
"Many people appreciate the opportunity to come and chat to us in a very non-judgemental way about drug consumption.
"And we know that when people come to us they change their minds about drug-use," he added.
Fixed pill-testing site to extend hours
Dr Caldicott said more broadly, the service was vital as it could shed light on the types of drugs in the community, as well as alerting the public to any dangerous additives or concentrations.
Australia's first fixed pill-testing site has been successfully operating in Canberra's CBD for some time and was even able to raise the alarm about a new type of recreational drug circulating in the community.
The CANTest site said it would extend its operating hours on Saturday April 22, the day before Groovin the Moo, in anticipation of increased demand.
