The Beyond The Valley music festival will be Victoria's first pill testing trial site, Premier Jacinta Allan has confirmed, and more are set to be unveiled.
About 35,000 are expected to attend the three-day festival that runs from 28 December to 1 January and will be held at Barunah Plains in Hesse, west of Geelong — about 1.5 hours from Melbourne's CBD.
Allan said it would be the largest Australian event to provide the service, which evidence showed saved lives by changing behaviour.
"We're not going to bury our heads in the sand," she told reporters on Sunday.
"If a young person is at a festival and got a pill in their hand, they intend to use it, but they deserve that health-focused information."
How will pill testing work at Beyond The Valley?
Allan said the pill testing service would operate from 1pm to 7pm on each day of the festival and could check whether pills, capsules, powders and liquids contain potentially deadly substances.
A consortium — led by the Youth Support and Advocacy Service, Harm Reduction Victoria, and The Loop Australia — will run the service, supported by Melbourne Health and The University of Melbourne.
"We're aiming to get up to 200 samples a day through the lab," The Loop Australia CEO Cameron Francis said.
The machines used would be able to deliver a result within minutes and can identify "almost anything" — but they cannot give an indication of purity and, in some cases, may not be able to detect trace amounts of harmful chemicals, Cameron said.
He said The Loop Australia's "biggest concern" was the purity of MDMA which had "increased" worldwide.
"We know that when that purity increases, there’s risks of overdose."
Experts and authorities this year have also been sounding the alarm over nitazenes — which can be up to 1,000 times more potent than morphine — which, in some cases, .
What about police?
Possession and supply of illicit drugs remain illegal, and police powers for drug-checking outside the services are unchanged.
"The legislation provides for access to the pill testing service to be provided in a confidential way," Allan said.
"In a legal way outside of that service, the responsibilities of Victoria police remain in place, and it remains illegal to be in possession or to take illicit drugs."
Where else will pill testing be rolled out in Victoria?
Beyond The Valley will be one of 10 festivals to offer the services.
The others are yet to be named, but Victoria's Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt said pill testing would be offered at five festivals this summer, and a further five in 2025-26.
Stitt said the state government wanted to trial the service at a "good mix" of regional and metropolitan sites.
The state government is also set to open a fixed pill testing site by the middle of next year, in inner Melbourne, which is expected to remain a permanent fixture at the end of the 18-month trial.
Where else do pill testing services operate?
— with the .
In January, Allan sought advice from the health department after at least 10 people were taken to hospital following suspected drug use at festivals.
Victorian paramedics responded to more drug overdoses in the first three months of 2024 than all of 2023, a lot of which were around festivals and other events attended by young people, Allan said.
Her predecessor, Daniel Andrews, rejected proposals for similar trials.
With the Australian Associated Press.