Pill testing is being introduced at Schoolies on the Gold Coast.
Queensland is one of three jurisdictions in the country to legalise pill testing, with the state’s Labor government hoping to help school leavers celebrate their pregnancies safely.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said a confidential and free pill test would be held at the end-of-year event, at a cost of $80,000.
“There is no safe way to use illegal drugs,” she said in budget estimates on Thursday.
“But if people really want to use these substances, and we have the technology to let them know what’s in them, why wouldn’t we offer it to them?”
The Schoolies service was offered after national data Research has shown that for the first time since records began, women aged 18 to 24 are using drugs as much as young men.
“We want everyone who comes to Schoolies to be safe and enjoy the festivities with their friends,” said Ms Fentiman.
“Without these services, we miss the opportunity to connect young people with healthcare professionals.”
This year, Schoolies on the Gold Coast is introducing a pill test as new data shows young women and men are equally likely to use drugs
The National Drug Strategy Household Survey also found that more than a third of young women had used illegal drugs in the past 12 months, a 27 percent increase in five years.
Queensland’s first pill testing service was rolled out during the Rabbits Eat Lettuce festival over Easter weekend, where 250 people were tested for substances.
Calls for standardised pill testing programmes at festivals increased following the deaths of Dassarn Tarbutt, 24, and Ebony Greening, 22, at the 2019 festival.
Queensland, ACT and Victoria are the only Australian jurisdictions to legalise pill testing.
Queensland has committed $1 million over two years to fund pill testing, with permanent sites set up in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
More than half of the people who brought their medicines to the Brisbane clinic threw them away on the spot.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said the free and confidential pill test would cost $80,000, but the Opposition said they would drop the plan if Labor lost the state election
But the opposition in the state said they would abandon the plan if they won the October elections.
“The LNP does not support the Labor Party’s soft approach to drugs in Queensland,” said deputy leader Jarrod Bleijie.
The state government has also allocated $1.73 billion for cancer care as part of a 10-year strategy.
Data from the budget estimates showed that ambulances could have been better deployed, with fewer than half of patients spending more than 30 minutes on a stretcher in hospital.
There was talk of an improvement on the previous quarter, but Ms Fentiman said more needed to be done. She noted that more than 1,000 long-stay patients were occupying beds each night because they could not be transferred to a nursing home or a disability facility.