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Pill testing will soon be trialled in Victoriathe state premier confirmed.
Jacinta Allen made the announcement in a video posted to social media Monday night.
“I wanted to tell you here first: pill testing will be trialled in Victoria this summer,” she said.
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Allen said watching her two children grow up has influenced her stance on the issue.
“In a few years they will be heading off to parties, music festivals and like all parents I find myself thinking – what if the worst happens? What if one of them doesn’t come home?” she said.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, and more and more parents are experiencing it.”
Paramedics responded to more drug overdoses at festivals in the first three months of this year than all of last year, Allen said.
The position is a step up from Allen’s predecessor Daniel Andrews, who consistently opposed such trials during his decade in office.
In February 2023, he said he did not believe “you can take these drugs at any level and be safe.”
Allen said pill testing could be a “simple and sensible way to save lives”.
“It exists all over the world and the evidence shows it works,” she said.
Five Victorian coronial recommendations from 2021 are calling for drug testing services in the state to reduce the risk of overdose death.
Queensland is the only other state and the ACT the only territory to have legalized the introduction of pill testing.
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