The 2020 new year got underway with a music festival in the Domain and for the first time an idea suggested by the Deputy State Coroner was available to allow patrons to dispose of illegal drugs under an amnesty system. This amnesty tent was situated well away from the entrance, where police were saturating their main drug enforcement effort and consisted of bins in which patrons could drop their drugs without fear of being arrested or even questioned. This facility was staffed by members of the NSW Health department.
Apart from this, little has changed. There was a large and threatening police presence through which patrons must pass to enter the venue and sniffer dogs still monitor the crowd. Entrants who draw suspicion because of a dog showing interest are escorted to a police tent for questioning and strip searches are still being conducted, but with a higher degree of privacy.
By 5 pm the police had charged twenty-seven people with possessing a prohibited drug and had arrested a supplier caught with 3.4 gams of MDMA secreted in his underwear. The unknown factor is the amount of drugs consumed at this festival which was attended by an estimated thirty thousand people. It is encouraging that the festival ended without a drug death.
It is reported that a French citizen visiting Australia attracted the attention of a sniffer dog and this resulted in an order for a strip search. He refused to remove his underwear on modesty grounds which might have brought an arrest law requirement that such arrests can not be made unless a charge is processed into question. Previously, police simply released such arrested people without charge if the strip search failed to discover drugs.
This confrontation ended amicably. The strip search did not proceed when the subject admitted having two MDMA tablets. He received a four hundred dollar fine, but no conviction was recorded. It is evident that the police are very carefully obeying the law when it applies to under age children being searched without the presence of a parent or guardian and generally applying that strip search option with a high degree of integrity. Any charge levelled against a police officer could be detrimental to career advancement and they approach strip searches with trepidation.
What remains unresolved is the fear factor of seeing those police and their dogs posing the threat of a strip search. That is enough to make some patrons who intend to ration their drugs over the length of the festival to panic and take the lot. That can be fatal when the drugs involved are from incompetent dug cooks and their strength is unknown.
The drug testing option is still rejected and critics are correct is maintaining that it can not ensure that whatever is tested is safe, but it could remove the most obviously deadly combinations on the market and that is a vast improvement on the conditions that exist today.
The one inescapable fact about drug testing is that it does reduce the potential harm.
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