Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform wishes to congratulate Dr David Caldicott, Gino Vambuca, Matt Noffs and all those involved in the successful pill testing trial at the ‘Groovin the Moo’ Music Festival in Canberra on Sunday 28th April.
They have worked for several years to bring this about at great personal cost. For this we are so grateful.
This has not been an activity that condones drug use but rather it sees that young people take these drugs even though they are prohibited and police presence has not been able to prevent the deaths.
They have worked on evidence from overseas and their own expertise. The most modern equipment was used at this event.
Dr David Caldicott said in many cases purity levels were unexpectedly high, prompting plenty of warnings.
“There was an awful lot — 86 per cent of what we tested returned positives for really rather high purity ecstasy or MDMA,” he said.
He said when that was explained to the person who had brought in the drugs, many said they planned to either take less of it, or not take it at all.
“There’s no intervention that stops all people consuming drugs, but that’s not really our goal,” he said.
“Our goal is to ensure that people don’t get hurt or killed consuming drugs.
“And if we can change the way people are using drugs to start with, then we might be able to change their attitude to drugs in their entirety.”
It would seem that young pill takers are comfortable discussing their pill taking with medical professionals who are there to protect them not to condemn them. This could prove to be the best education we can give our young people who take these pills. Families will be pleased that their young party goer has this opportunity to be educated and to be kept as safe as possible.
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