Synthetic Opioids and Pill Testing
Ms Cate Faehrmann: On Saturday 27 January 2024, one day shy of the four‑year anniversary of the ice inquiry report being handed down, a patron attending the HTID music festival at Sydney Olympic Park suffered a suspected drug overdose. The medical team working at the event quickly realised that, rather than it being an MDMA overdose, the person's presenting symptoms—along with the fact that the person was revived by naloxone, a medication that is given to reverse heroin, fentanyl and other opioid overdoses—suggested it was an opioid overdose. It meant an extremely serious situation was unfolding—a "nightmare scenario", as one of the medical workers called it.
Who knew how many of the 21,000 people in attendance had taken such a pill? Who knew if it was being sold by dealers inside the festival, meaning that there could be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the pills in circulation? The amazing medical team and DanceWize volunteers acted fast, notifying police and festival organisers of the emerging situation. Incredibly, the festival organisers and DanceWize then made a decision that very probably saved lives that night. At 10.30 p.m. they cut the music and asked the DJ to read out a carefully crafted, simple message to the 21,000‑strong crowd. It stated:
We have a quick announcement: We have been advised there is a substance in the form of a red bull pink pill that has been flagged by medical specialists as having serious adverse affects. If you are feeling unwell, please seek medical assistance. Everybody, let's finish this party friendly and have a great night.
It worked. DanceWize volunteers had people telling them that they disposed of those "red bull" pills. That is what harm reduction looks like. That is what saving lives looks like. Subsequent tests on the pills found that what was being sold at that party was not MDMA. In fact, it was an extremely dangerous synthetic opioid called nitazene, which can be 500 times stronger than heroin. Nitazene has been linked to 54 deaths in the United Kingdom in the past six months alone, with warnings in that country and Europe that that could be the tip of the iceberg.
Over the past 15 years the number of new psychoactive substances circulating on the global market has increased dramatically. Synthetic opioids can be manufactured quickly and cheaply, especially when illicit crops are hard or expensive to come by. That is what is happening right now as a result of the Taliban recently outlawing poppy—or opium—cultivation in Afghanistan. It has led to a dramatic reduction in production in the country that has been for many years the largest cultivator of opium in the world. Nitazene is in Australia already and it is going to get a whole lot worse. In September the Therapeutic Goods Administration warned that there were "recent reports of the detection of nitazenes in seizures of heroin and other illicit and counterfeit drugs in Australia". In New South Wales nitazene was responsible for overdoses on the Central Coast in December.
The nitazene in the red bull pills over that January weekend resulted in three people being hospitalised, including one who needed intensive care. The warning from the stage was given 6½ hours into that festival, which was too late to stop many people experiencing difficulties if they had already taken a pill. But that was far better than the almost 48 hours that passed before NSW Health published a public health warning on its website the following Monday—after people had been hospitalised; after a weekend when tens of thousands of people partied at a festival where people were rushed to hospital and where medical workers had to revive people with naloxone; and after harm reduction experts stepped in and did what the Government should have been doing if it were in any way serious about saving young people's lives.
Those experts calmly and respectfully informed 21,000 partygoers about a dangerous drug in circulation and what to do if they were feeling unwell. If there was ever a perfect example of why pill testing is needed and why it works, that is it. On the same day that at least three young people came close to losing their lives in Sydney because of a contaminated drug supply, the United Kingdom opened its first regular drug testing service in Bristol. I say to Premier Chris Minns and health Minister Ryan Park that synthetic opioids are here now and they will be soon flooding the black market. They should hurry up and allow pill testing before more young lives are lost.