ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury has admitted to taking MDMA and called on the New South Wales premier to allow pill testing at music festivals in the state.
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Mr Rattenbury, who was a strong supporter of the pill testing trial at the Groovin the Moo music festival last year, told ABC Radio Canberra he only used the drug once.
"I didn't like the effect it had on me, so that's an experience I didn't want to repeat," he said.
"But the reality is people do experiment with these things and they shouldn't die as a result of doing it."
"We're not taking an approach that's simply one of, 'Say no.' It's not going to do the job and we need to be looking at a range of harm minimisation strategies that deals with the reality that young people will experiment and they will take drugs at music festivals," Mr Rattenbury said.
Mr Rattenbury has described being among "trusted friends" in his twenties when he took the drug.
"It wasn't something I'd prepared for or thought about, it was just one of those moments where I thought this could be interesting," he said.
He said there was no value in lying about his drug use and there wasn't enough honesty in the drug policy debate.
"It does inform my view on this in a sense that I did something, with the benefit of hindsight, was a really risky thing to do and I probably shouldn't have done it," he said.
"I was lucky I got away with it."
Mr Rattenbury said his experience made him aware of the reality for young people, and that everyone had done risky things at some point in their life.
But Mr Rattenbury said he could "guarantee" that no one in pill testing tents would encourage young people to take drugs and that he wished there was more information available when he tried the drug.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has repeatedly said she wouldn't allow pill testing at music festivals in NSW. Five people have died in as many months after taking drugs at music festivals in the state.
NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann admitted to taking MDMA in an article for this masthead on Monday, saying she had "occasionally" taken the drug at dance parties and music festivals since her twenties.
"I know journalists, tradies, lawyers, public servants, doctors, police and yes, politicians (most well into their forties), who have done the same," she wrote.
Mr Rattenbury has sent a joint letter with Ms Faehrmann to Ms Berejiklian to call for pill testing in NSW.
"There is no silver bullet to addressing the dangers of illicit drugs, but we can listen to the experts who are calling for a health-focused approach to minimising their harms. Pill testing has been shown to be effective when it has been introduced overseas, and in 2018 Australia’s first pill testing trial took place in Canberra," the pair wrote.
The pair has joined the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in calling on Ms Berejiklian to reconsider the hardline stance against pill testing the NSW premier has taken.
The NSW government announced new harm minimisation measures at music festivals this week, including chill-out zones and free water, but not pill testing.
The consortium that ran Australia's first legal pill testing trial in Canberra has been asked to test drugs by festival promoters around the country but won't test at festivals outside the ACT until more governments get on board.
More to come
