NSW to Roll Out Drug Checking at 15 Music Festivals

Sydney — The New South Wales Government will introduce drug checking services at up to 15 selected music festivals from October, following a 12-month trial that tested more than 1,500 drug samples and drew more than 1,800 people.

The trial, conducted between March 2025 and February 2026, was recommended by New South Wales (NSW) Deputy State Coroner, Harriet Graham, after a 2019 inquest into the deaths of six young people who had taken drugs at music festivals.

Led independently by the University of Sydney, the trial provided free and anonymous drug checking at 12 festivals.

Festival-goers could submit small samples of substances they intended to consume for testing for purity, potency and adulterants by qualified health staff.

Associate Professor, Phillip Wadds, of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) School of Law, Society & Criminology and Centre for Criminology, Law & Justice, said the strong uptake reflected longstanding demand for the service.

“There's been demand for drug checking for a really long time,” Dr. Wadds said.

He said people wanted information about substances they might consume, adding that drug checking could improve safety even though it could not eliminate the risks associated with illicit drug use.

Dr. Wadds also linked the changing drinking habits of younger Australians to the evolving festival drug market, noting that alcohol consumption has declined among people aged 18 to 25.

“People still want to party and have a good time,” he said, pointing to rising alcohol prices and the relative cost and duration of illicit substances as factors that may influence choices at nights out.

The service is not limited to laboratory analysis. NSW Health operates the program in partnership with NUAA, formerly known as the NSW Users and AIDS Association, with festival-goers meeting a forensic chemist and a peer worker.

They receive information about their test results, safer consumption practices and guidance specific to the substances presented.

This can include warnings about risks associated with combining drugs such as ketamine and alcohol.

Some people who discover that a substance is different from what they believed they had purchased choose to dispose of it in amnesty bins at drug checking sites.

“That immediately removes from circulation something that might’ve been really dangerous,” Dr. Wadds said.

He said the benefits could spread beyond individuals who use the service because festival-goers often share information with friends.

“Nobody exists in a vacuum,” he said, noting that a person attending a festival with 10 friends could pass information to those friends, who could then share it with others.

“The more people that engage with drug checking and other harm reduction services, the more literacy there is among communities who use drugs and that's really important,” Dr. Wadds said.

Drug checking can also provide health authorities with information about substances circulating in an otherwise unregulated market.

“It can provide insight into an unregulated drug market,” Dr. Wadds said.

He said the detection of dangerous adulterants such as nitazenes could trigger alerts to public health officials, helping emergency departments prepare for substances that may be presented by patients.

Festival organisers can also use the information to issue warnings directly to crowds.

Dr. Wadds recalled an event where organisers interrupted video content on festival screens after a dangerous drug was identified, displaying an image of the pressed tablet and warning people who had purchased it.

“That’s an immediate benefit to the entire community at the festival,” he said.

He said drug markets could also respond to public health warnings because consumers may avoid suppliers associated with dangerous substances.

“The drug market is economically sensitive,” Dr. Wadds said, arguing that warnings about substances contaminated with dangerous adulterants could create a commercial incentive for suppliers to improve the quality of drugs.

Dr. Wadds said the festival program should eventually lead to publicly accessible drug checking services at fixed locations across NSW.

Permanent services already operate in the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria, while Vancouver Island in Canada has a distributed drug checking network.

He said fear of arrest could deter some people from using festival-based services, particularly at heavily policed events.

“One of the biggest barriers to getting your drugs checked at a festival is the fear of being arrested on your way to the service area,” Dr. Wadds said.

He described festival-based drug checking as an entry point for considering permanent services, particularly if the benefits demonstrated at festivals help build wider community support.

Ultimately, he said, expanding drug checking would provide authorities with greater visibility of the illicit drug market while giving communities more information to reduce harm.

“The more drug checking that takes place, the more insight we have into what is circulating in the drug market and that information supports better safety outcomes which is what we all want,” Dr. Wadds said.