Pill testing will soon be trialled in Victoria, the state’s premier has confirmed.
Jacinta Allan made the announcement in a video posted to social media on Monday night.
“I wanted to tell you here first: pill testing will be trialled in Victoria this summer,” she said.
Ms Allan said watching her two children grow up has impacted her stance on the issue.
“In a few years, they’ll be heading off to parties, to music festivals, and like all parents I catch myself thinking – what if the worst happens? What if one of them doesn’t make it home?” she said.
“That’s every parent’s worst nightmare – and more parents are living it.”
Paramedics responded to more drug overdoses at festivals in the first three months of this year than all of last year, Ms Allan said.
The stance is a step away from Ms Allan’s predecessor Daniel Andrews who was consistently against similar trials in his decade-long tenure.
In February last year he said he did not believe “you can take these drugs at any level and be safe”.
Ms Allan said pill testing can be a “simple and common sense way to save lives”.
“It exists around the world and the evidence says it works,” she said.
Five Victorian coronial recommendations since 2021 have pushed for drug checking services in the state to reduce the risk of overdose deaths.
Queensland is the only other state and the ACT the only territory to have legalised the rollout of pill testing.
