Kat THEOPHANOUS: Speaker, Victorians take drugs.
That is an undeniable reality and we cannot police it away.
Every day, every night, every suburb – Victorians are taking illicit drugs and they are rolling the dice on substances that they do not and cannot truly trust.
They are taking that deathly risk, and they will continue to take that deathly risk. That is the reality.
No amount of moralising to young people or heavy-handed policing is going to change that reality.
What we can do is work to mitigate the risk that illicit drugs pose to people’s lives.
And we can do that by prioritising the health and safety of Victorians.
We can and should rightly prioritise health and safety over and above any other metric – because frankly, lives should be the most important metric of all.
Everyone in this chamber will either be or know someone who has taken illicit drugs. They’ll either be or know someone who has had a concerning or unexpected reaction to those drugs.
If they’re lucky, they won’t be or know someone who has had a serious and life-threatening reaction to those drugs. But that is only if they’re lucky, Speaker.
THIS BILL - The Victorian Governments Drugs Poisons and Controlled Substances (Pill Testing) Amendment Bill – represents a progressive leap forward in our evidence-based approach to drug harm minimisation.
It is not about legalising illicit pills and substances. That is the warped narrative of those opposite.
Pill testing is a health-lead response; it’s a prevention response to a real-life health risk.
It’s an approach that seeks to reduce the negative consequences of drug use – drug use which like it or not has caused far too many overdoses and far too many deaths.
Every single one of those deaths Speaker was preventable.
Preventable by not taking those drugs in the first place.
And in that critical moment of decision, that life-or-death moment, that contemplation and that weighing up of risk which people go through when they think about taking a pill;
in THAT moment, when they have the pill in their hand, when they are thinking ‘should I or shouldn’t I’ or ‘I may as well’ – how could we not want Victorians and especially young Victorians to have every bit of information at their disposal to potentially prevent them taking that pill?
This bill will go to the heart of the issue, Speaker, supporting the establishment of mobile and fixed site drug checking services in Victoria including at music festivals.
It will also progress the government’s commitment to introduce secure Naloxone vending machines in areas of need – a life saving treatment to rapidly reverse opioid overdose.
This Bill gives people the opportunity to have substances tested for dangerous additives, high doses or unexpected compounds and, importantly, receive crucial education from a trained peer worker and technical experts about the risks involved.
This vital conversation could be the first time that person speaks with a health worker about using drugs. It could be the first time they truly get an understanding of the risks.
Speaker, these are life-saving conversations.
The information could be about the effects of different dosages, how substances interact with each other, the importance of sleep or hydration and the impact of hot weather, all of which can vary significantly, particularly at music festivals.
This is about harm minimisation. It’s not about harm elimination – because we are not so naïve as to think we can convince every Victorian never to experiment with illicit drugs.
But it is about establishing an additional safety mechanism to prevent drug harms in the community.
In so many aspects of our lives, there are elements of risk. To reduce these risks, we implement legislation that increases safety. This is no different.
This is a practical response to the undeniable reality that Victorians use drugs. It does not make it completely safe, but it empowers people with the information and resources they need to make safer, more informed choices.
Earlier this year, nine people were hospitalised at a music festival after taking drugs, and Victorian paramedics responded to more drug overdoses at festivals in the first three months of 2024, than during all of 2023.
The criminalisation and messaging of “just don’t take drugs” is not working. It’s not enough.
And alarmingly the drugs are more potent and more complex than ever before, Speaker.
In the last 10 years, over eleven hundred new drugs have been identified and we are witnessing the potency of synthetics increasing dramatically.
In Victoria in 2023, 547 people tragically lost their lives to overdose, and 42 of those deaths involved new psychoactive substances.
Recently, I joined the Parliamentary Friends of Harm Minimisation at an information session in Parliament on the synthetic opioid crisis.
It was frightening to see the trends occurring overseas and how they are showing up in Australia, where drugs are contaminated with traces of Fentanyl or the newcomer, Nitazenes.
Nitazenes were developed by researchers around 60 years ago as an alternative to morphine, but because of their high potential for overdose were never released.
However, over recent years they have showed up in the illicit drug market. They have been found in tablets which were meant to be Oxycodone, in heroin, ketamine and cocaine.
This drug, which is showing up in Australia, is stronger than fentanyl and hundreds of times more potent than heroin. Hundreds of times more potent than heroin.
Speaker, these drugs don’t come with labels. They don’t come with warnings. There’s no ingredients list.
The potential for these substances to be deadly is extremely high. With as little as two milligrams being enough to cause death.
The message from researchers and advocates is that we cannot sit on our hands. We must be ready for new and more complex drugs entering the illicit market and we must be agile enough to respond.
Pill testing can help detect new, potentially dangerous substances and provide timely and valid data about illicit drug markets.
This is particularly useful for emergency services and can be used to provide an early warning system, helping to protect the whole community and strengthening Victoria’s drug surveillance efforts.
Speaker, it should be organised crime who pay the price for circulating these substances, not the people who are using drugs – and drug checking services can help us achieve this.
This bill can, and will, save lives.
It is backed by experts locally and abroad.
Since 2021, four Victorian coroners have recommended the government implement a drug-checking service for illicit drugs.
Speaker, drug checking is overwhelmingly supported by the health sector, including the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Public Health Association of Australia, the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, and the Penington Institute.
In the words of Dr Anita Munoz, Chair of Victorian RACGP, ““This is a victory for common sense and sound policy over tired rhetoric and a ‘war-on-drugs’ mentality that gets us nowhere…
The Government has not only listened to the College, and a host of other groups, but acted decisively to introduce mobile and fixed sites. It’s such a fantastic outcome. Drug testing is not about condoning illicit drug use, rather it’s a sensible harm reduction measure.”
Thank you, Dr Munoz, I complete agree.
Speaker, the Allan Labor Government is listening to the evidence, we are listening to the experts, and we are acting. Because there is no time to wait.
Those opposite might try to argue that pill testing gives the false impression that it is safe to use drugs, but the evidence shows a different story.
Local and international experiences show that drug checking is an effective intervention that does not increase or encourage illicit drug use.
It has proven its efficacy over many years around the world – with 31 programs operating globally, including in the United Kingdom, North America and New Zealand.
Closer to home, there are pill testing services in the ACT and Queensland.
And the outcome in the ACT gives us a good indication of what might happen here in Victoria. The ACT data showed that:
over two-thirds of people visiting the fixed-site reported never previously accessing a healthcare worker for information or advice about drug use.
Half the drugs were found to contain substances not expected by the person
39 percent of service users were young adults, aged 24 or under
Approximately one-in-ten samples tested resulted in a drug being discarded at the service
These are powerful outcomes.
Speaker, I mentioned it briefly earlier but want to come back to the provisions in the Bill which enable the supply of Naloxone through secure automated vending machines.
Naloxone is a completely safe, lifesaving opioid reversal medication and we are committed to getting it to the people that need it.
That’s why we’ll establish 20 secure Naloxone Vending Machines in the areas of greatest need and we’re making amendments through this bill to allow that to happen with this controlled substance.
In a world where drug overdoses can occur in minutes, having access to rapid reversal medication like Naloxone will save many lives.
Speaker, it’s worth noting that this bill doesn’t exist in isolation.
It complements many other harm reduction measures the Labor Government is delivering, including expanded access to mental health services, investments in drug rehabilitation programs, trialling Australia’s first statewide Overdose Prevention and Response Helpline and of course being home to one of only two safe injecting facilities in the Southern Hemisphere.
Speaker, pill testing is not a radical idea. It’s a measured, thoughtful response to a very real problem.
The evidence is there, the need is urgent, and the consequences of inaction are too grave to ignore.
As policymakers, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect the health and wellbeing of Victorians. This bill does just that.
I urge all members of this house to support this bill, to stand with Victorians, and to protect their right to make informed choices about their health and safety.
Thank you.
