Pill Testing At Festivals and Events Essay

Pill testing or drug checking according to Lancaster, Ritter & Matthew-Simmons (2013) is a method pushed and adopted by some countries to reduce the harmful effects of consuming drugs among the youths by availing all relevant information like purity, content and way of preservation, preservation and manufacture to the consumers who intend to consume the drugs. This comes after increasing reports of abuse of drugs in festivals by youths that lead to serious health complications and even demise. As a result, countries like Australia are pushing for a pill or drug testing in festivals. According to the Australian National Council on Drugs, drug abuse will reduce if the idea is legalized. This will have positive effects on the society since there will be a reduction in the consumption of killer drugs, assistance from the government through drug monitoring, awareness and information on health effect and substance content to the youths that will reduce consumption some pills (Lancaster et al., 2013).

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According to HuffPost Australia (2018), the advantages of pill testing in festivals include a reduction in deaths, effects, and consumption of drugs and substances that have no clear information containing their content and purification. This will enable the consumers to have the power to choose concerning consumption of a particular product after weighing its health consequences. For instance, according to American Drug Addiction Information Service (ADAIS), there were cases of ecstasy availability in Australia that is one of the dangerous substances in the world. With a comparison of this substance in UK, US, Australia and Canada, Australian Ecstasy has the lowest content of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) that is an active ingredient in the drug. On the other hand, the Australian ecstasy had a high composition of the PMMA, paramethoxymethamphetamine causing extreme temperature, seizure to the body that can lead to death.

Generally, drug checking in festivals will provide the target consumers (youths aged 20 to 29 years) a chance to know the exact content and consume those that have little health effects that not knowing what they consume. According to some drug experts and academic, the push for the legalization of drug testing will give the government and relevant authorities to monitor the content in drugs and reduce the consumption of substances like ecstasy that are harmful. This move will create a shift in consumption and demand of drugs that will make some drugs not suitable for consumption, banning and loss in the market while others like marijuana will gain increased demand (HuffPost Australia, 2018).

Conclusion

In conclusion, in my personal opinion, the governments should legalize drug testing since it will be an eye opening to the consumers (youths) who have a tendency of consuming substances without the correct knowledge of their content (Ritter, 2014). This will lead to a great shift and reduction in consumption of substances that are highly dangerous and will give the government a chance to monitor drug consumption and content verification. Creating awareness of the information of the drugs will educate the youths on their health effects that will also reduce death cases due to substance intakes.

References

HuffPost Australia. (2018). Music Festivals, Drugs And Pill Testing. [online] Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/12/29/music-festival-drugs_n_8886364.html [Accessed 24 May 2018].

Lancaster, K., Ritter, A., & Matthew-Simmons, F. (2013). Young people's opinions on alcohol and other drugs issues. Australian National Council on Drugs.(Lancaster, Ritter & Matthew-Simmons, 2013)

Ritter, A. (2014). Six reasons Australia should pilot 'pill testing'party drugs. The Conversation Retrieved from http://theconversation. com/six-reasons-australia-should-pilot-pill-testing-party-drugs-34073.