Uniting NSW.ACT welcomes today\u2019s announcement by the NSW government that drug checking will be allowed at 15 music festivals across the state each year. We believe this is an important step towards a broader evidence-based approach to reducing harm.
If NSW is serious about making this life-saving intervention available to everyone who needs it, then drug checking through permanent community-based services must be made available.
Alice Salomon, Director Advocacy and External Relations at Uniting NSW.ACT said:
\u201cToday\u2019s announcement is a welcome start, and the NSW Government should be congratulated for taking this positive first step. Drug checking gives people potentially life-saving information and creates an important opportunity to connect them with trusted health advice and support.
\u201cBut people who use drugs, don\u2019t only do so at music festivals. Access to proven harm reduction service shouldn\u2019t depend on whether or not you can afford a festival ticket, where you live, or the circumstances in which you use drugs. Everyone person who uses drugs deserves access to the harm reduction services that will help keep them safe.
\u201cFixed-site, community-based drug checking would make this service available to many more people, including regional communities where we know there is both need and demand.
\u201cAt a time when drug overdose deaths are double the road death toll, proven harm reduction services need to be available as widely as possible.
Uniting is calling on the NSW Government to build on today\u2019s announcement and commit to setting up fixed-site drug checking services in the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Uniting NSW.ACT welcomes today\u2019s announcement by the NSW government that drug checking will be allowed at 15 music festivals across the state each year. We believe this is an important step towards a broader evidence-based approach to reducing harm. If NSW is serious about making this life-saving intervention available to everyone who needs it, then drug … Continue reading “Uniting welcomes festival drug checking, but says access must go beyond the festival gates”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40673,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40672\/revisions\/40673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}