A second pill testing trial will take place this year at the Canberra leg of the Groovin the Moo festival, a year after it hosted the first Australian trial in April 2018.
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The trial, to be run by the STA-SAFE consortium, will use the same technology but will be a larger operation with an additional testing machine and more staff.
At last year's festival, 125 people visited the pill-testing service, 45 per cent of them 20 years old or younger.
The decision to carry out the second trial comes after the death of 19-year-old Alex Ross-King, the fifth person to die at a music festival between September 2018 and January 2019.
The testing service has been welcomed by several Australian artists set to tour the country with Groovin the Moo.
Suffa - Hilltop Hoods
"It's just something that should be happening. For a short time before we were able to turn music into a career, I had a background in studying social work.
"I definitely come from a harm-minimisation background. I wholeheartedly believe we need to deal with issues like this by taking a different approach, other than shutting down festivals.
"It's such a blunt-forced, backwards-thinking way of dealing with the issue when there are other options on the table."
Beatrice Lewis - Haiku Hands
"It might as well be as safe as possible. I feel like the whole world is moving into - or perhaps the kind of world I inhabit - a space where science is using different drugs for trauma counselling and I feel like that overall there's a big shift happening, which to me could be really helpful for some people.
"It's about being realistic about what's happening in the world. Surely we want to keep people as safe as possible."
Tommy O’Dell - DMA's
"They trialled pill testing at the Canberra event last year, so it's definitely worth trialling it again. If it's going to help the safety situation, then by all means, it's a good idea.
"It's a sensitive issue at the moment with festivals, and is constantly in the media, but just whatever keeps people as safe as possible is what we want as musicians. If pill testing can help that then I don't see why it shouldn't be there."
