A mother who has gone through an unintended process from grief to being an advocate said that the government of NSW should be ahead of other states in having a program for testing drugs which would be the first step to stopping drug-related deaths. All are unanimous in their opinion and state: “It will save lives”.
Jennie Ross-King, a lady from NSW currently, is enduring the pain of her daughter Alex’s sudden death, who was a 19-year-old and had taken overdose of three doses of MDMA at the Parramatta-based FOMO music festival more than four years ago. When she participated in the 2019 inquiry into the Sydney music festivals, her friends revealed Alex had claimed she took the deadly dose without knowing it before the event because she was afraid of being captured by the police.
A mother, Ms. Ross-King emphasizes that her daughter may still be alive with all necessary support, even being her drug dealer if she had been properly educated both on the signs of overdose and the harmfulness of DMAA/alcohol. She saw this as one of the causes the “word out” panting coupled with the fact that having the drug checked would produce instant evidence of facts on the dangerous drug particularly crossed her mind. Drug checking service is her area of interest; she campaigned for it very often so she is very familiar with common names such as pill testing. A drug user is at liberty to hand over legally his/her product to be checked for contamination, purity, and sometimes potency with the help of a medically qualified professional to reduce harm and risk of getting injured.
“What more perfect time you have than when your friend next to you is a doctor and just can ask him what is his opinion over that”,
Ms. Ross-King said during her conversation with NewsWire. “When a young man or woman stops or at least he questions a little bit by asking: ‘Wait, can cause problems to me and besides that, what must I do in this case’.”
Again, She feels sorry to herself about not talking about personal experiences and being less educated on the subject of drug abuse, to be able to chat more openly with her daughter about risk management and overdose response.
The news about the legal introduction of free and legal mobile drug checking services in Victoria, according to Victoria Premier Jacinta Allen, have come up suddenly, introducing these services at 10 different places during summer festival season with a permanent facility to be in operation from mid-2025 followed by the official announcement. In April this year, Queensland established another site at Bowen Hills, a suburb of Brisbane CBD, after the popular CanTEST program in the ACT launched in 2022. However, NSW Premier Chris Minns has put off the implementation of further measures until after a drug summit whose date is still unknown which has irritated the community groups.
Uniting NSW and Emma Maiden think such points should be given priority and solutions be executed with zero waste of time, basing the conversation on the positive examples of Victoria and Queensland. Their arguments are founded on the pressing need for pill testing and the fact that life would be saved due to legalizing this practice while NSW is waiting for the summits to give official approval. The chief executive Minns holding other government matters as paramount notwithstanding, the State’s health sector is said to be preparing for the summit, a reality that Health Minister Ryan Park made clear when he committed himself to cover the matter of drug safety with an efficient and timely response.
