NSW to restart festival pill testing but keeps drug dogs and bans community rollout
New South Wales will bring back pill-checking services at up to 15 music festivals from October, while refusing to expand the program to the broader community and maintaining the use of drug-detection dogs.
From October, NSW Health will restart pill-testing at up to 15 music festivals annually, after a 12-month trial that analysed 1,480 drug samples and found unexpected substances in 8% of cases. The program will remain free and anonymous, allowing attendees to submit small amounts for analysis of purity, potency and contaminants. The government also confirmed that drug-detection dogs and related searches will continue, despite research linking them to riskier drug use and unlawful strip-searches.
An independent University of Sydney evaluation highlighted changes in user behaviour after testing, including reduced consumption of high-dose MDMA. Health and harm-reduction organisations, including the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Alcohol and Drug Foundation and Unharm, pressed for community-wide drug checking, noting that 72% of fatal overdoses in 2024 happened at home. Premier Chris Minns and Health Minister Ryan Park reiterated that there are no plans to extend testing beyond festivals.
Why it matters
It shows how NSW balances harm-reduction efforts with policing tactics, affecting festival safety and broader drug-policy debates.
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