With the Summer festival season about to hit the ground running, the subject of having pill testing booths present at events is hitting the news again.
The Government has remained firm on its stance to not buy into pill testing booths, while the other side continues to argue that if the booths don’t get the green light, more festival goers will die from ingesting illegal pills and it will be all the Government’s fault.
Well I’m sorry, but it won’t. It’s those who take the pills, despite all the warnings swamping the media, who will have to bear the blame, but they’ll probably be dead. That may sound horribly blunt, but what is any government supposed to do when, having put all the information out there regarding how dangerous these pills are, people still opt to buy them and then ingest them in the full knowledge that they have just popped a potentially deadly bullet into their mouths? Yes, it is tragic when someone dies so needlessly and it is devastating for their families and friends, but somewhere in that outpouring of grief they need to understand and accept that their loved one would not have died if they had abided by the warnings and not taken a dangerous and illegal drug in the first place.
But would having been able to access a pill testing booth have saved their lives? Maybe some, but on the whole I don’t think so. Having watched a documentary on this topic, I saw people accessing a booth at an event in Europe with their illegal pills and, in the case where the pills were deemed dangerous, they were then handed back to the person with a recommendation that they not take it. The pills were handed back to them! Why weren’t they disposed of or destroyed by the pill tester? Those whose pills had failed to pass the safety test were asked by the film maker if they still intended to still take them and only one of them said no. Only one. The rest seemed unconcerned and figured the high would be worth the risk. Except the pills, if it all went wrong, would not just make them sick. They would make them dead.
So what does that say about pill testing booths saving lives? Not very much.
Which is why I cannot agree with one grieving mother insisting it’s the Government’s fault her son died from ingesting MDMA at a festival, because if the Government had allowed pill testing at events where the drug is rife, he would still be alive today. No, he would still be alive today if he had simply not used the drug. Placing the blame with others may help her to cope, but the bottom line is, her son knew the risks yet still bought the pills, and then took them. I know how harsh that sounds, but it’s the truth here. He did know. At some point, people have to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.
And that’s the thing. The information is out there on the dangers of MDMA, also known as ecstasy and “Molly”. So if all that information on the dangers of using these pills is not enough to deter people from taking them, how is negative feedback from a pill tester going to make any difference? Especially when the tester hands the pill back? Okay, some have taken it and suffered nothing worse than a headache when they came down but they are in the minority. In most cases it will have a detrimental affect on the user’s brain and then they will collapse and die. This happens fairly quickly after ingestion and for the user who has an adverse reaction, there is no coming back.
One would think that the number of fatalities would be enough to convince people not to use these pills. But it’s not. They are still taking them and still dying. And that’s not the Government’s fault.
And pill testing will change nothing.