A confidential and free pill-testing service will be rolled out by the Queensland State Government at this year’s Schoolies at Surfers Paradise, to help young people celebrate safely.
The site will be located close to the entertainment precinct in Surfers Paradise and co-located with other health services.
Recent data from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey showed that for the first time since national records began, young women aged 18 to 24 are taking illicit drugs at the same rate as young men.
The same survey found that more than one third of young women have taken an illicit drug in the last 12 months, up from 27 per cent in 2019.
Research shows that drug-checking services help to reduce the harms of drug use and inform people’s behaviours after receiving relevant health information about the contents of their drugs.
In March this year, pill testing was conducted at a multi-day music festival for the first time in Australia, at the Rabbits Eat Lettuce Festival, where 250 people had their substances tested.
The safety initiative is free, voluntary and confidential. It involves the testing of substances a person is intending to use, providing a health intervention that aims to change a person’s behaviour, and reduce their risk of harms associated with illicit drug use.
The Schoolies site is an expansion of the state government’s $1 million investment this year to fund the delivery and evaluation of fixed-site and event-based drug-checking services.
It follows the establishment of the first fixed-site service, CheQpoint, in Bowen Hills in April this year and a second CheQpoint fixed-site which was opened at Burleigh on the Gold Coast in July.
In the first month of operation at Bowen Hills, 40 people walked through the doors with a total of 80 samples. Of those, 74 per cent were commonly recognised unregulated substances, including MDMA, Alprazolam and LSD.
There was also 12 per cent of novel psychoactive substances, three per cent of other less common substances and eight per cent of unknown drugs.
More than half of those people chose to discard the drugs on site and a further 16 per cent reported they would discard the substances themselves.
The pill testing initiative delivers on a key priority under the Queensland State Government’s $1.645 billion Better Care Together plan to reduce the harms of alcohol and drug use.
Minister for Health, Mental Health and Ambulance Service and Minister for Women Shannon Fentiman said every year thousands of people die from drug related deaths in Australia, and one death is one too many.
“We are particularly concerned about the recent data which shows that illicit drug use in young women is increasing,” Ms Fentiman said.
“This additional service is all about empowering Schoolies with the information they need to make informed decisions that we hope will help to keep them safe.
“We know these sites can help people make informed choices, and that’s why the government is investing an additional $80,000 to establish a site for Schoolies. Without these services, we miss a unique opportunity to engage with Queenslanders about the harms of drug use,” she said.
