Pill testing trial 'successful' at music festival, evaluation finds

People attending a music festival who were told their drugs contained a potentially deadly substance immediately threw them out after using a trial pill testing service.

An independent evaluation of the trial at the Groovin the Moo festival in Canberra this year has found the service improved participants' harm reduction knowledge, their trust in health providers and their stated intentions around drug use.

ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said she will discuss the findings of the evaluation with her state and territory counterparts at the next Council of Australian Governments health meeting.

"We need to continue this conversation at a national level," she said.

"... we have seen too many avoidable deaths at music festivals. It is obvious current processes and policies are not working and more needs to be done."

However, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has maintained her stance against pill testing, which she has previously said "unintentionally [gives] young people the green light that it's OK to take the drug so long as you test them".

More than 230 attendees of the April festival used the trial, which was sanctioned by the ACT government and provided by Pill Testing Australia but was not advertised or supported by signage, according to the evaluation by Australian National University researchers.

People who brought in seven pills that were sold to them as MDMA but found to contain the potentially deadly substance N-ethyl pentylone all disposed of the drugs. The findings did not indicate how many people brought in these drugs.

Nearly 30 per cent of people who used the service said they planned to reduce the quantity of drugs they took or not take any at all.

Lead researcher Anna Olsen said the results show that speaking to health professionals before making decisions around drug-taking impacted people's behaviour.

"From just one visit to a harm reduction service young people's attitudes and behaviours changed in a way that is likely to reduce harm," Dr Olsen said.

"For people who go on to take the drug they had tested, we found evidence for risk reducing behaviours such as taking less of the drug, spacing out their drug consumption and taking other safety precautions like drinking lots of water."

Dr Olsen said the service was also successful in delivering important health messages.

Only three of the 30 trial participants who agreed to be contacted for follow-up research said they had ever spoken to a health care provider about drug use before using the testing service.

"The reality is that young people are taking these drugs even though they're illegal and even though public health information advises against it," Dr Olsen said.

"We didn't find any indication that having a pill testing service there was encouraging people to use drugs, the message was that taking drugs can be really harmful and it was a way of giving them good, sound health advice."

People who used the service were given pill testing information and a "brief intervention from peer educators".

About 95 per cent of the people who used the service said they would use the services again.

The evaluation found the "service was successful" and the results "support the development of further pill testing trials in Australia".

One person died at a music festival in NSW this month after taking a number of illicit drugs and two people were taken to hospital after suffering from suspected drug overdoses at a music festival in Victoria on the weekend.

Ms Berejiklian did not comment specifically on the findings of the evaluation.