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Pill Testing: It Won’t Change a Thing.

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.

 

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The Pill-testing Debate

Pill testing. It’s been hogging the media here in Australia for a while now, but at the risk of getting the pro-test groups all bent out of shape, I find myself leaning towards the “No” side because I am still of the belief that people need to be responsible for their own actions, up to and including taking something that they know has the potential to harm or kill them. Like, how hard can that be?

I think the bells began ringing when 15-year-old Anna Woods collapsed and died after taking an Ecstasy pill in 1995. While Anna’s death was tragic, it did sound a warning that perhaps Ecstasy was not the harmless party drug that people had originally thought it was and the media storm that followed revealed the drug could contain all manner of toxic ingredients that could cause nasty side effects, permanent injury and in other cases, death.

Right. That should have been sufficient to cull the number of users, yes? Well, no, it wasn’t. Ecstasy pills and the like have made greater inroads into the Australian drug culture, become synonymous with music and dance festivals and despite the warnings all over the media, the user rate has grown, resulting in more people suffering permanent damage, with the death rate from pill use increasing alarmingly. And this is the bit I don’t get; why would you deliberately ingest something that has your highly possible demise written all over it? It is still a tragedy when people do and die as a result, but no one can claim today that they bought the pills in ignorance. We all know they are toxic. We all know they are very bad news. So why would anyone be stupid enough to take the risk?

Well firstly, there’s the silly supposition of “It won’t happen to me.” Sorry, but it so will. “Everyone else is taking them!” Really? So that’s a good reason? Every user that has either dropped dead or been left permanently damaged from taking these pills no doubt thought exactly the same thing, assuming they gave it any thought at all and once you have taken one bad pill, that’s it. For you, anyway.

And now we have the blame game. Responsibility and consequences, appear to have become dirty words unless they can be attributed to someone or something else. In the case of the dangerous pills being hawked around the festival circuit, it’s “the government’s fault” which takes personal responsibility right out of the equation. Except it doesn’t. Right now, in NSW, the pro-pill testing groups are blaming the government and in particular, the NSW Premier, for the death of every fool who plays Russian Roulette with a pill, and loses, because she has said no to pill testing booths at festivals and the like. Well, sorry to rain on their parade and all, but the blame doesn’t lay with either. It is not up to the government to hold your hand. The blame lays squarely with the user who, despite all the health warnings about these pills, still opts to buy them and use them. If they die as a result, the fault is theirs and theirs alone. I understand that this won’t go down well with the pro-pill testing lot, but I don’t care. It’s time someone spoke up and dumped the facts on them. Festival organisers can’t be held responsible either. They already have a police presence at their events, and sniffer dogs. What else would you have them do? The government has made all the information about the dangers of these pills readily available. What else should they be expected to do?

If you are old enough to attend a festival, you are old enough to take responsibility for your own health and safety, and that’s the bottom line. If you opt not to buy/use the pills, I congratulate you for using some common sense regarding your life but should you decide to take them, then it’s unlikely you are reading this because you died. If you died, it’s on you, hon, no one else.

Seriously, you need to wake up!